OKLAHOMA CITY — Keilani Ricketts threw 156 pitches in hot, sticky ASA Hall of Fame Stadium Sunday afternoon. Defending national champion Arizona State, facing elimination, swung at them with their lives.
If the Sun Devils didn’t hit them, they had to nick a strike zone that occasionally resembled a lima bean.
It went like this for 2 1/2 hours, until Ricketts struck out Sam Parlich to finish Oklahoma’s 5-3 victory over Arizona State.
It was her 13th whiff of the day, and her fifth over the last six outs.
Tired, sweaty and wearing a giant ice pack on her left shoulder, Ricketts had one question for OU coach Patty Gasso.
“The first thing she asked me,” Gasso said, “was, ‘What time do we play tomorrow?'”
They’ll take the field at 5 p.m. against Alabama, playing the opener of a best-of-3 national championship series. San Benito graduate Jessica Vest will take the field for the Sooners as their starting shortstop.Â
“To find a way to play for a national championship has been our ultimate dream, our ultimate goal,” Gasso said.
“To know it is a chance for a reality is unbelievable.
“The hard work and effort they’ve put in, there’s not another team that deserves it more than my Sooners.”
Surely Jessica Shults deserves it.
The OU catcher, a year removed from being hospitalized with ulcerative colitis, lined a two-run double off the glove of diving rightfielder Alix Johnson Sunday.
That put the Sooners ahead for the first time, 4-2, in the bottom of the third inning.
“Pretty close,” Shults said. “It would have been a great catch.
“It could have gone either way.”
Katie Norris deserves it. The senior from Stillwater hit a solo homer off Dallas Escobedo, the Sun Devils’ championship-winning pitcher from 2011, to pull OU within 2-1 in the second.
“I honestly was just looking for a ball up in the zone,” Norris said, “and she laid it there.”
Nobody, though, deserves the title shot more than Ricketts.
The 6-2 lefthander had difficulty with both Arizona State hitters and the strike zone from Sunday’s start. When Annie Lockwood split the gap in right-center with two outs in the top of the first, Ricketts had given up her first earned run in 40 innings. Lockwood’s two-run double made it 2-0, Sun Devils.
“Then she really got connected and really started to compete,” Gasso noticed.
Ricketts worked around a one-out infield single in the top of the second. She worked around back-to-back walks in the third.
She worked around a two-on, two-out jam in the fifth.
Arizona State’s Talor Haro reached on Javen Henson’s wild throw from third base with one out in the top of the sixth.
Ricketts turned around and struck out leadoff hitter Katelyn Boyd looking and Johnson swinging after Johnson had been ahead in the count 3-0.
Boyd came in with a .429 average and 19 homers, Johnson with a .403 clip and 13 blasts.
Haley Steele led off the top of the seventh by singling to left. Ricketts’ response was to fan clean-up hitter Amber Freeman swinging after being behind in the count 3-1, to get Lockwood looking on three pitches, and to blow one by Parlich for the game-winner.
As the Sun Devils left town at 53-11, the 53-8 Sooners made it eight wins in eight tries this postseason. That’s eight wins in eight tries for Ricketts.
Now, they’re all playing for OU’s first national championship since 2000.
“I’ve seen Keilani Ricketts turn from a girl into a woman in two years,” Gasso said.
“She’s reaching new heights here and setting herself apart from the field.”
Shults said, “Keilani’s a competitor. She wants to go out there and perform at the best level she can. She made it happen.”
Women’s College World Series
OU 5
Arizona State 3
WCWS finals
Vs. Alabama (at Oklahoma City)
5 p.m. Monday
TV: ESPN2
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Look for more on Jessica Vest in Tuesday’s Free Lance.
