Taking on 55–2, No. 1 Oklahoma just a 30-minute drive from the Sooners’ campus, Texas softball faced a tough task in its second game of the Women’s College World Series on Saturday.

With Sooner fans flooding Oklahoma City’s USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium, graduate transfer pitcher Hailey Dolcini took the mound for the Longhorns. Her last outing against Oklahoma resulted in a 4-2 victory at home, but the Sooners had Dolcini’s number in the rematch. Behind a solid performance from redshirt senior pitcher Hope Trautwein, Oklahoma defeated Texas 7-2 to put its longtime rival one loss away from elimination.

The game started off with a bang for the Sooners. In the very first at bat of the game, Oklahoma sophomore Jayda Coleman sent a line drive screaming into the right-center field gap for a leadoff double. Redshirt senior Jocelyn Alo, the NCAA’s all-time leader in career home runs, then crushed a screwball to deep left field which quickly put the Sooners ahead 2-0.

“It’s murderer’s row,” Texas head coach Mike White said of Oklahoma’s lineup. “Someone asked me, … ‘Maybe walk Alo in the first inning.’ That’s not the way I play softball. We were fairly successful against her, (but) we just didn’t execute the pitches.”

The Longhorns struck back quickly in the bottom of the first. Freshman third baseman Mia Scott bunted for a single and stole second base, and sophomore shortstop Alyssa Washington continued her postseason hot streak with an RBI-double along the third baseline to score Scott.

“It’s encouraging to get that one run back straight away,” White said. “It gave us some brief confidence.” 

However, the early run didn’t turn into continued success behind the plate, as Trautwein kept the Longhorns off schedule and off-balance for most of the game. Senior second baseman Janae Jefferson’s perfect timing on a home run in the seventh inning was the only other bright spot behind the plate for Texas. Trautwein gave up two runs, six hits and kept runners off base by allowing just two walks on the afternoon.

“We just started to chase,” White said. “We were trying too hard and pushing ourselves too much instead of letting the ball come to us. We didn’t really follow the game plan, … but good pitchers like Hope Trautwein make you do that.”