A peculiar rule came into play in the 2022 Women’s College World Series: While most NCAA softball games can end with a rule of mercy (or “career rule”) when a team leads with eight runs or more in the fifth entry or later, this The option is deactivated when only two teams are left standing. When the championship is in play, the games must be played to the end. Of course, this scenario is not often presented, as the two teams that have outperformed each other tend to be competitive. In the history of the WCWS championship series, more games have been devoted to extra tickets (12) than have been decided with eight or more races (six earlier this year).
But softball needs mercy to protect itself from Oklahoma, the most dominant team the sport has ever seen. The Sooners won 59-3 this season to win their second consecutive national championship. Of those 59 wins, 41 were decided by the rule of mercy, and should have been 43. They wiped out Texas in the championship series, and both games were a blast: they won the game 1 by 16 -1, breaking a record of six home runs and stage. the mark of the largest margin of victory in a series of championships, and they led game 2 by 10-2 after six innings. Texas made three runs at the end of the seventh to make the final score 10-5.
Things are supposed to get harder for teams as they get deeper into a given postseason. That was not the case in Oklahoma. During the regular season and the Big 12 tournament, the Sooners outscored their opponents by a total of 463-45, an average margin of victory of 8.20. In the NCAA tournament, they increased that margin to 8.73, thanks to a record 20-0 win over Texas A&M and a no-hits 8-0 win over UCF. They made a trip to the championship series heading to UCLA 15-0, and then ran 26 races in two games in the championship series. When things got tough, the Sooners kept hitting dingers.
Most of Sooners ’exaggeration naturally surrounds Jocelyn Alo, who unquestionably consolidated her status as the best batsman in college softball history. The all-time leader of Division I crowned her career with 12 of 18 with five homers in the WCWS, raising her batting average to .515 during the season as she set series records for most homers. (five) and most. annotated races (12). It is a WCWS tradition for ushers to give the players’ families the home run balls that are hit; the Alo clan heads back to Hawaii with a suitcase stuffed with heavily dented softballs.
Of course, teams do not win 41 games per rule of mercy due to a star player. Oklahoma averaged 9.33 runs per game this season, while no other team averaged more than 8.0. If you took out all 85 RBI from Alo, the Sooners would still have averaged 7.93 runs per game, which would have been good enough to take second place in the nation. Behind Alo in the batting order is Tiare Jennings, who led Division I in RBI. It was quite common for teams to walk with Alo, only for Jennings to do a home run, which happened against Texas on Wednesday night. (Alo and Jennings homered in a row.)
And in addition to having the best softball offense, Oklahoma also had the best pitching staff. He finished the season with an effectiveness of 0.97; Wichita State was second with an effectiveness of 1.46. (To be fair, the Oklahoma pitchers didn’t have to pitch the Oklahoma batters.) The Sooners only allowed 65 runs in 61 games, while three Oklahoma batters scored at least as many individually. The Sooners pitchers threw eight without hits, with two in the NCAA tournament.
Oklahoma was even amazing on defense. Gardener Jayda Coleman stole a Texas home run on the championship score Thursday night.
The dominance can sometimes be boring, but it has never felt that way for a team that was happy to hit opponents in the ass in every way possible. It makes me happy that the championship series doesn’t have a rule of mercy. For once, we need to see exactly what happens when the Sooners continue to pile up.
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