OKLAHOMA CITY — No one ever said it would be easy to beat Oklahoma, especially in the friendly confines of Devon Park.

That’s the message Texas softball coach Mike White had for his team after the Sooners flexed their muscle before an appreciative home crowd in an 8-3 win Wednesday in the first game of the Women's College World Series best-of-three championship series.

"Its not how hard you fall; it's how high you bounce back," White said. "We have to come back and bounce back from adversity right now, or we go home. It's pretty simple. It's fight or go home."

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The next fight is Thursday, and Texas needs to throw some more haymakers.

The Longhorns got just four hits against Oklahoma ace Kelly Maxwell, who earned the complete-game win. And they knew they might see Maxwell again, based on the lefty's comments after Wednesday's win.

"This is it; this is my last opportunity," said Maxwell, an Oklahoma State transfer in her first season with the Sooners. "I'm just going to do everything I can to keep this team in it. I know that they have my back and I got theirs."

And how did Maxwell feel after throwing 15 innings and 267 pitches over the past two days?

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"Mentally and physically, I'm doing good," she said. "The staff here is doing everything they can to keep me going and feeling good."

Texas coach Mike White: 'It's like a chess match'

In contrast, the Texas pitchers can't be feeling great after almost the entire staff saw action while giving up nine hits, including three home runs. Freshman Teagan Kavan got the start after throwing a pair of one-hit shutouts in earlier WCWS wins over Stanford, but her streak of 14 scoreless innings quickly ended with a two-run homer from Oklahoma's Tiare Jennings in the first inning. Mac Morgan, who tossed a one-hit shutout against Florida earlier in the WCWS, relieved Kavan in the third inning with Texas down 5-1, but she threw only 2⅓ scoreless innings as White began to plot his pitching options for Game 2.

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"It's like a chess match," he said. "Obviously, they (the Texas players) were very disappointed, disappointed in our effort and the execution of the game plan. You have a certain game plan, (but) you got to adjust midway. I've always said he who adjusts last loses. We didn't really do a good job of that tonight."

Texas braces for another chance in Game 2

Texas third baseman Mia Scott hammered a solo home run in the first inning, and Katie Stewart and Joley Mitchell each added an RBI single in the bottom of the sixth. Those runs provided the slightest of salves in a painful loss, White said.

Stewart, a freshman, said a young Longhorns team that started six freshmen or sophomores Wednesday can learn from its Game 1 experience in the crimson-and-cream cauldron of Devon Park.

"I mean, we got a taste of it in the Big 12 Tournament, with all of their fans being here," Stewart said. "It was a little bit different tonight, but just kind of staying within ourselves, reminding ourselves that it's just a game that we're playing. Listening to the fans is only going to hurt us."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Sooners roll over Longhorns in first game of NCAA WCWS softball finals