A year to the day after a Louisiana-Lafayette batter popped up Paige Parker's 493rd pitch of the NCAA tournament for the final out in a super regional, the Oklahoma ace was essentially a fan with a really good seat Saturday when the reigning champion Sooners booked a spot in the Women's College World Series for the sixth time in seven years.
After Parker's 14-strikeout complete game on Friday put No. 10 Oklahoma in command of its super regional at No. 7 Auburn, the rest of the pitching staff took over in a 5-2 win Saturday to help OU claim the best-of-three series.
Specifically, Paige Lowary took control. A first-year transfer who wasn't around for last year's championship celebration at Auburn's expense, Lowary allowed just two hits and one unearned run in 4 2/3 innings of relief against the Tigers on Saturday to get the win.
Which is sort of fitting, considering the Sooners wouldn't have survived four elimination games in the regionals without the work Lowary did in 11 1/3 innings out of the bullpen.
Nicole Pendley made life easier on all of her pitchers by putting Oklahoma ahead 3-0 with a three-run home run in the bottom of the second (the Sooners were the home team on the scoreboard for the second game). Pendley also put her team on the scoreboard for the first time in the opening game, and she drove in another run in this game in the sixth inning. Because family comparisons are inescapable at Oklahoma, only older sister Shelby Pendley ever had more RBIs for the Sooners in a super regional game.
But it was Lowary who made sure Pendley's initial hit provided all the runs Oklahoma needed. With the lead already trimmed to 3-1 on a home run, and with a runner on second and Kasey Cooper at the plate, Lowary entered with one out in the top of the third inning. She coaxed a popout from Cooper on a full count and then retired Carlee Wallace to close out the threat.
When Cooper -- in what turned out to be the final at-bat of the best career in Auburn history -- cut the deficit to 3-2 with an RBI single in the fifth, Lowary struck out Wallace on three pitches to end that inning.
Those 493 pitches thrown by Parker in the regional and super regional rounds of last year's tournament constituted every pitch thrown by an Oklahoma player. She memorably went on to win five more games in the World Series. It is always worth pointing out for posterity that Kelsey Stevens put together one of the best and most easily overlooked pitching seasons in program history to get the Sooners to the World Series in 2014, but injuries and control issues meant that neither she nor anyone else on the roster was in a position to ease Parker's burden last spring.
It had to be Parker a year ago, and it was. But if it had to be Parker this season, Tulsa would have been playing Auburn in this super regional.
The Sooners talked all season about having a pitching staff. The past two weekends proved it wasn't just platitudes.