Oklahoma State softball: Lexi Kilfoyl, pitching staff carrying load lately for Cowgirls
STILLWATER — The Oklahoma State softball team had three late-inning rallies last week, but it needed four.
The Cowgirls saw their winning streak snapped at 13 games with a 2-0 loss to 19th-ranked Baylor on Saturday, but picked up three wins otherwise — and in each one, they trailed in the sixth inning.
Still, the Cowgirls reached the 20-win mark through just 23 games and remained unbeaten at home.
Here’s a look at what we learned about the Cowgirls in the opening week of Big 12 play:
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No. 4 Oklahoma State
Overall record: 20-3 (2-1 Big 12)
Last week: 3-1 (Beat Wichita State 4-3, beat Baylor 4-1 and 3-2, lost to Baylor 2-0)
This week: vs. Central Arkansas, 6 p.m. Wednesday; vs. Central Florida (6 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday, noon Sunday)
Oklahoma State pitching trio carries the load
For the first weekend of Big 12 play, on the road against a top-20 opponent, OSU coach Kenny Gajewski gave the bulk of the work to his top two performers to this point in the season — Lexi Kilfoyl and Ivy Rosenberry.
Kyra Aycock also had a strong outing, allowing one hit over 4 ⅔ shutout innings in the pitching-duel loss to Baylor. Rosenberry, who picked up the win in relief of Kilfoyl against Wichita State, suffered her first loss of the year when she was tagged for two runs after replacing Aycock — though a bit of shaky defense contributed in the costly sixth inning.
Kilfoyl allowed one run in four innings of relief in the finale, capping another strong week for the ace. She allowed one earned run over 18 innings, improving her record to 9-2 and dropping her ERA to 0.77. Opponents are batting .144 with 47 strikeouts and nine walks over 54 ⅓ innings.
Oh Silent Bats
It was a relatively quiet week for the offense, which managed just 11 runs on 22 hits over four games, well below the 7.4 run-per-game average it came in with.
Yet with such a young lineup, occasional inconsistency is to be expected.
The top of the order was particularly quiet in terms of run production, considering those hitters have been the team’s most reliable RBI producers. But the top four hitters combined to drive in three runs for the week.
It was a hitter from that group, however, who got the Cowgirls’ only base hit in the 2-0 loss, with a single from cleanup hitter Caroline Wang. She has remained a consistent bat in the heart of the order, having hit safely in 18 of 23 games this season with a .362 batting average.
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Rosie rally
While the hits might not have been plentiful, they were timely — especially off the bat of Rosie Davis.
The Cowgirls trailed Wichita State 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning when Davis came through with a two-run triple to tie the game. Then in the eighth, she singled in Karli Godwin with the walk-off winning run.
In the series opener at Baylor, OSU trailed 1-0 in the top of the seventh when Megan Bloodworth drove in the tying run on a fielder’s choice.
In the eighth, sophomore Claire Timm’s two-run home run put OSU up by two, and Davis added extra insurance with an RBI single in the 4-1 win.
In the finale, the Cowgirls trailed 2-0 in the sixth when Tallen Edwards drove in a run. Then in the seventh, Micaela Wark drove in the go-ahead run and Bloodworth added another RBI for the final cushion.
Timm, a first-year starter, and Davis, a true freshman, have emerged as reliable bats in the Cowgirl lineup, both batting over .400 with three home runs apiece. Though Davis often hits in the bottom half of the lineup, she has knocked in 17 runs.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State softball: Lexi Kilfoyl, pitching staff carrying load