Cowgirls Dominate Kansas

Originally Published: Apr 17, 2010 6:52 PM CDT

Gerald Goodridge
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

LAWRENCE, Kansas -- No. 9 Oklahoma State won the first of a two-game series with Kansas 11-3 in five innings, the Cowgirls’ 15th straight win.

OSU (38-7, 8-0) was dominant early on, putting the Jayhawks down four runs before the end of the first inning. In the third at-bat of the game, Alysia Hamilton singled to center to bring Mariah Gerhart home, who reached on an error in the first at-bat of the game. Two batters later, Tamara Brown doubled to center to score Hamilton and Julie Ward.

That would be the last at-bat of the day for Kansas (18-25, 1-9) pitcher Alex Jones (5-9), who receivedthe lossafter pitching just one-third of an inning and giving up three hits and four runs after facing just five batters.

Oklahoma State added four more in the third inning by creating offense and capitalizing on Kansas mistakes. Ward started the inning with a walk and Breana Cassus came in as a pinch runner. She proceeded to steal second, and Megan Castle singled up the middle to bring her home and push the lead to five. Brown followed by scoring on an error by the center fielder to give OSU a 6-1 lead.

Two at-bats later, Kelsey Anchors singled down the right field line to bring Castle home, followed by a Gerhart sacrifice fly to score Marcum and give OSU an 8-0 lead.

Kansas scored its first run of the game on a Mariah Montgomery solo home run in the bottom of the third, giving Cowgirl pitcher Anna Whiddon (19-3) her only earned run of the day.

Whiddon pitched 4.1 innings and gave up three hits and walked one, while striking out six of the 17 batters she faced.

The Cowgirls finish the two-game series at noon Sunday.