Oklahoma State Softball Retreats to Smell the Roses and Reset for NCAA, Take off the Brake

STILLWATER – If you were looking around town today to congratulate the Oklahoma State Cowgirls for their first Big 12 Conference Softball Championship then you were out of luck. No sign of the Cowgirls and their staff around. Cowgirls Stadium had some things going on already preparing for OSU hosting Fordham, Nebraska, and North Texas for the NCAA Stillwater Regional. The Cowgirls were in Broken Bow, Oklahoma at the lake and having a retreat.

OSU Cowgirls Softball Twitter

Cowgirls watch the NCAA Selection .Show

“It’s a good place for us and always been a place where our team could come down here and have some fun, relax,” head coach Kenny Gajewski said of the retreat. “You can reset your mind. We did it in the fall after we had our watch party (NCAA) here last season. It was the right thing for that team and gave me the feeling that maybe we should do that again. We watched the selection show last night in a really nice cabin up on a hill overlooking Broken Bow Lake and that is where the girls stay.”

On the way to the lake the Cowgirls found that Broken Bow and the folks around were as excited for them to be there as they were to head down there following the 4-3 extra-inning conquest of No. 1-ranked Oklahoma in the Big 12 Tournament Championship Game in OKC.

OSU Cowgirls Softball Twitter

Kelly Maxwell plays catch at Broken Bow H.S. for practice.

“We stopped at Pete’s Place (popular Italian food restaurant in Krebs) and what was really cool when we got there, they had one of those yard art signs reading, “Congratulations Cowgirls!” You never know who you impact and who is paying attention,” Gajewski added. “A lot of good things are going down for this team and with what they’ve done.”

Last year’s retreat really was a reset before the NCAA Tournament. This trip to southeastern Oklahoma is too, but it is also a stop and smell the roses escape and get that out of the system. The team got in some practice on Monday going about an hour and a half of batting practice and pitchers working their arms to keep physically preparing for their NCAA opener later in the week with Fordham at 7:30 p.m. on Friday evening.

OSU Cowgirls Softball Twitter

Julia Cottrill up for a little R&R.

After the practice then it was everybody get ready for a lake cruise on a houseboat and some true R-and-R on Lake Broken Bow. Time to cut loose, swim, fish, sunbathe, whatever to relax and prepare for the start of the road back to Oklahoma City and the Women’s College World Series.

Gajewski reviewed for us the path last week to the Big 12 Championship. It started last Thursday with the first round game against seven seed Kansas, a team the Cowgirls swept and Oklahoma State came in on a five-game losing streak with two to Florida State and three to the 48-1 Sooners.

“I think what we have to think about was that Kansas game I knew would be the hardest of the week,” Gajewski said. “We had lost five in a row to two of the best teams in the country. We didn’t play well and when you don’t play well especially against good teams then you get beat. Our girls were mad, upset, and I knew that Kansas game would be tough because here they were sitting at the bottom of the conference.”

It was and Oklahoma State only won 2-0. The next day was much better a 6-1 win over Texas, fourth of the season for the Cowgirls over Texas. Oklahoma State started with two runs early on a couple of close but reviewed and upheld calls.

Marshall Levenson - Pokes Report

Gajewski has never flipped off an umpire, but he explained he’s been in that moment before.

“Going into that Texas game where (Texas coach) Mike White lost his ----, I felt so calm. I even turned to somebody in the dugout and said, ‘I’ve been there,’” Gajewski said of the incident where the Texas coach was ejected and then used inappropriate sign language (the middle finger) on the way off the diamond. “I haven’t been there where I ended it like that, but I’ve been there where everyone and everything is going against you, and you lose it. I’ve gotten better.”

Then the 4-3 extra-inning win over Oklahoma for the title. Gajewski agreed the swagger was back after Texas, but he says that book sent to him by Brian Cain. Cain works with Florida State’s team and others and Gajewski had connected to him through a friend and mentor. Cain had shared somethings with Gajewski that he had shared with his team. Now, here comes this audio book the night before the Big 12 Championship and Gajewski goes all in.

“I put my phone on airplane mode and even put it in the shower so texts wouldn’t interrupt me and I listened to the entire thing, an hour and 15 minutes,” the coach said on Friday evening.

The book is written by Dr. Rod Gilbert and based on his 30-years of working with teams and athletes and one portion of it hit Gajewski as if it was written in raised text or italics or on tape as if it was narrated by James Earl Jones.

“The part about the mental emergency brake hit me and I thought that is where we are playing like we have an emergency brake on and you can’t play like that,” Gajewski said. “You can’t coach that way either.

“The cliff notes version of this story is there is a rich uncle that tells his nephew if you go to college and graduate with highest honors then I will get you any car that you want. He graduated with highest honors and the uncle true to his word got him a red Jaguar. He and his buddy took it out and they could only get it up to 105 (mph) and they took it back to the dealership because they knew it should be able to go faster. The mechanic looked at the nephew and said, ‘so, you’re telling me that you graduated from college with the highest honors and you’ve been driving for five or six years and you don’t know that you shouldn’t be driving with the emergency brake on?’”

The brake came off and the Jaguar topped 150 (mph). Kenny took off the emergency brake coaching. He had his team hear the story and they seemed to understand.

Now, the Cowgirls should have no problems cutting loose later in Stillwater in the NCAA Regional.