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OU softball freshmen ready right from the jump

Bob Przybyloby: Bob Przybylo02/12/26BPrzybylo

You could hear the excitement in the voice of OU softball head coach Patty Gasso when talking about the freshmen class.

But it’s one thing to believe it, then it’s another to see it. OU fans? Well, they saw it in the first weekend of the season. There is a lot to be excited about now and going forward.

Whether it was Kendall Wells and her late-game heroics or the versatility of Allyssa Parker or the speed of Kai Minor, take your pick.

It’s all impressive and something that should continue the rest of the way.

Maybe you shouldn’t expect Wells to hit home runs in the seventh inning all the time, but you already know it’s possible.

“She just swings really hard,” Gasso said. “Once you hit a bomb, you want to hit another one, and you want to hit another one. And sometimes when you try to hit bombs, it just doesn’t, you’ll hit a sky-high fly ball. She’s going to be absolutely amazing when she starts to understand how this works, but I thought she handled herself really well as a freshman behind the plate.

“The pitchers feel comfortable pitching to her or Bela, either one, so it was an easy transition for her. She didn’t look like she was overwhelmed or rattled. She got the game-winning hit for us against Arizona State and we were facing a pitcher we certainly were not prepared for, so I love where she’s at right now this early in her career.”

It shows the type of trust Gasso has in them to have Wells and Minor in the lineup just like that. No feeling out process. Here, go ahead and show you belong at OU.

And they are. You think of Minor and her speed when she’s a runner. But that speed combined with her instincts, make her an incredibly dangerous defensive player.

In all the good ways.

“She can chase anything down. She’s very, very quick,” Gasso said. “Offensively, I think she was good. I know she’s better. Very quick, I can run with her on the basepaths. I didn’t do a lot of that against Arizona because I wanted to get a lead and then start opening things up a little bit more and not get people thrown out at second. Their catcher has a pretty good arm but we exposed it a little bit when we had the lead. That big game that we scored quite a few runs on, we were able to expose that a bit. It really changed once we exposed it. She really came back to throw at us, so Kai is very dimensional.

“She can run, she can chase things down, her arm is good, she can bunt, she can slap and she can hit it off or over the fence so there’s lots to do with her.”

Upcoming Weekend Schedule – Las Cruces, N.M. / El Paso, Texas

Friday, Feb. 13 at 11 a.m. (vs. Montana)
Friday, Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. (at New Mexico State)
Saturday, Feb. 14 at 10 a.m. (vs. Minnesota)
Saturday, Feb. 14 at 1 p.m. (vs. Idaho State)
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Sunday, Feb. 15 at 1 p.m. (at UTEP)

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