No. 9 Oklahoma State Cowgirls Power Themselves to an Opening Win
The rains in California stopped long enough to let the Cal-State Northridge Matadors softball diamond to dry up and No. 9/11 Oklahoma State Cowgirls started their California road trip and opening game of the season with an 8-0 run-rule game that lasted just five-innings and a little over an hour and a half. Freshman first baseman Karli Godwin, in her first collegiate at bat, knocked in the first run of the season as her single brought home veteran and lead-off hitter Tallen Edwards for a 1-0 lead in the top of the first.
OSU added two more in the fourth, thanks to an RBI single from Megan Bloodworth and a heads-up baserunning play from freshman Rosie Davis, who scored from third when Bloodworth was caught trying to steal second.
The Cowgirls combined perfect defense with no errors with strong pitching from starter Lexi Kilfoyl and freshman Katie Kutz followed by Ivy Rosenberry to finish off the last inning. Kilfoyl was perfect in her two innings of work with one strikeout. Kutz came on and gave up the only two hits for Cal-State Northridge and Kutz walked one, but the defense had her back. Finally, Rosenberry came on and struck out two of the batters she faced to end the game in the bottom of the fifth.
The first run was all the Cowgirls needed but junior catcher Audrey Schneidemiller stepped up with bases loaded in the fifth and Oklahoma State up 3-0 from the two runs in the fourth. Schneidemiller blasted a ball deep to the warning track in left-center field and Alexa Landeros and Mikayla Carman both going for the ball slammed into each other. Carman was the one that immediately got up and tracked down the ball but not before three Cowgirls scored and Schneidemiller was at third with a triple. Oklahoma State added two more runs once with Schneidemiller scoring from third.
Kilfoyl got the win in the circle and the Cowgirls totals were eight runs on eight hits and no errors. CSUN had no runs on the two hits and there were three errors on the home team.
Oklahoma State moves on to Loyola-Marymount on Friday for a 1 p.m. game. They will play Utah State and UC-Riverside at UC-Riverside on Saturday before finishing up with a 3 p.m. game on Super Bowl Sunday at No. 10 UCLA. That game will be nationally televised on ESPN.