Alyssa Brito

Senior utility player Alyssa Brito during the game against Baylor on March 23.

 Annie Davenport/OU Daily

Oklahoma (38-4,15-3 Big 12) defeated BYU (22-19, 5-13) 7-3 at Love’s Field in Norman on Saturday afternoon.

After Friday’s disappointing 9-4 defeat against the Cougars, OU was able to rebound to avoid back-to-back home losses. After finishing taking the series 2-1, Oklahoma is still on top of the Big 12 leaderboard, with Texas one game behind.

Here are three takeaways from the Sooners’ win:

Maxwell’s solid performance

Kelly Maxwell continued to put together a consistent outing.

After allowing a solo home run, hit by BYU infielder Maddie Udall in the second inning, the graduate transfer was able to find a groove.

The graduate transfer did not allow another hit until the sixth inning and also gave up a two-run homer to BYU shortstop Aleia Agabayani in the seventh — but the lefty still recorded her seventh complete game of the season.

Maxwell, who earned her 13th win of the year, went seven innings with six hits, three runs, two walks and six strikeouts on 113 pitches.

“I’m really proud of her,” head coach Patty Gasso said after Saturday’s win. “There were times where she wasn’t feeling her best, and elite athletes let that go.”

Clutch hitting

Oklahoma capitalized on scoring opportunities on Saturday that it was not able to execute on Friday.

During game two of the series, the Sooners went 3 of 21 at the plate with runners on base and 2 of 13 with runners in scoring position. Today OU went 6 of 20 with runners on and 4 of 15 with players in scoring position.

Senior infielder Alyssa Brito stuck out in OU’s lineup on Saturday.

After Gasso moved Brito down to the seven hole, she went 3 for 4 at the plate with a home run and four RBIs. Her two-run homer in the fifth highlighted the Sooners’ four-run inning.

“I think today I really wanted to make adjustments as far as taking away the offspeed,” Brito said. “I knew that was something that they were consistently going to against me, so just digging in and finding an elevated pitch was what I wanted.”

OU bounces back

Following last weekend’s series loss against Texas, where Oklahoma saw its 40-game Big 12 win streak come to a close and had its first conference series loss since 2011, the Sooners took care of BYU on Saturday.

After a stretch of three losses in their last five games, OU was able to settle down and avoid back-to-back series losses with consistent play on both sides of the ball.

During the final game of the series, the Sooners had a .964 fielding percentage and hit .370. 

Next, Oklahoma plays Tulsa (26-13, 11-5 AAC) at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City on ESPN+.

This story was edited by Gracie Rawlings. 

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