Oklahoma State softball: Five things to know about Cowgirls' WCWS opponent, Georgia
Scott WrightOklahoman
No. 5 seed Oklahoma State’s Women’s College World Series experience begins against unseeded Georgia — one of two unseeded teams in the field — at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Hall of Fame Stadium.
Here are five things to know about Georgia:
Georgia Underdogs
Despite being underdogs in its regional and super regional, Georgia advanced to the WCWS undefeated in the NCAA Tournament.
Georgia was granted host privileges for its regional, but was not a top-16 national seed. Duke earned the No. 13 seed in Georgia’s regional. The Bulldogs used the home field to their advantage in a pair of one-run victories over Duke, and moved forward to face No. 4-seed Florida on the Gators’ home field.
Again in an underdog situation, Georgia came out on top with 4-0 and 6-0 victories over Florida.
You might be wondering how the Bulldogs fell to the point of not being a national seed in the first place. It came with a miserable close to the regular season, particularly in conference play.
Georgia lost 11 of its last 13 games in the regular season. The Bulldogs lost seven straight prior to the NCAA Tournament, getting swept in three-game series against Alabama and at Mississippi State before getting eliminated from the SEC Tournament with a first-round loss to Kentucky.
Fellow Sooner slayers
In the middle of all that late-season carnage, Georgia found a spark and defeated No. 1 Oklahoma in the front end of an April 20 doubleheader in Athens.
Seventeen days later, Oklahoma State pulled off the same feat, beating OU in the first game of a three-game series in Stillwater.
So the only two teams to defeat the top-seeded Sooners this season are facing each other in the first round of the WCWS, with the winner most likely taking on OU once again.
Georgia’s Jaiden Fields went 3-for-5 with three RBIs and drove in the winning run in the 7-6 victory over the Sooners in nine innings.
Fincher powers offense
The Georgia offense is led by Lacey Fincher, who is one of three Bulldogs with a batting average above .300 and one of three with double-digit home runs. Fincher is batting .338 with 15 homers and 37 RBIs this season.Fincher, a first baseman who hails from Tanner Williams, Alabama, was on the SEC All-Freshman team in 2019.
Jaiden Fields, the sister of Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields, is second on the team with a .308 batting average and Sydney Chambley is batting .307 with 11 homers and 36 RBIs.
Sydney Kuma is tied for the team lead with 15 home runs and leads the Bulldogs with 39 RBIs.
Avant anchors pitching staff
Georgia has a staff with five pitchers who have made at least 14 appearances this season, but only one — Mary Wilson Avant — who has made more than 20.Avant is the standout of the group, having pitched in all five victories of the regional and super regional, throwing all but six innings of the postseason to this point.
She threw a complete-game shutout in one of the two wins over Duke in the regional, then went the distance against Florida in back-to-back super regional shutout victories. She also went all nine innings in the win over OU.
For the season, Avant has a 20-10 record with one save and a 2.69 ERA. She has struck out 194 batters in 197 ⅔ innings pitched.
Harris-Champer the architect of Bulldog softball
Georgia coach Lu Harris-Champer was winning games with the Bulldogs when some SEC schools were just coming around to the idea of investing in the game of softball.Harris-Champer is in her 21st season at Georgia and has won 959 games in that time. In 2019, Georgia won its 1,000th game as a program, and at the time, more than 900 of them already belonged to Harris-Champer.
So as the Bulldogs prepare for their fifth WCWS appearance, it’s easy to say that Georgia softball wouldn’t be where it is without Harris-Champer.
