07/13/2026
Spring 2026 season has come to a close…
Iowa’s Midwest Championship Nationals was a fun trip. I do wish an arbitrary pool draw didn’t dictate your overall finish from the start, when you’re talking 56 teams, there’s no telling how any team there responds after opening day of games knocking off the jitters in pool play.
2 of our 3 pool play matchups finished in the top 10, and one of those was our first game where we definitely played tight and not ourselves just yet. Once we got past Thursday we relaxed and played some ball and that was fun to watch. The excitement in our 9 inning battle in bracket game 1, was for me what it’s all about (win or lose), as the girls were down 3-0 going into our top of 7 at-bat and they kept fighting… posting 3 to tie and then a 4th run to take the lead on back-to-back clutch hits that had us all going crazy! The home team was resilient as well, though… sending it to ITB and ultimately winning the game in the bottom of 9.
Now for the losers bracket…
The girls bats woke up, going on a 4 game tear to set up a rematch with the team that sent us there. We were hungry and wanted revenge and that they got… posting a run rule in 5 innings to move on to Sunday play.
Sunday morning was a bit challenging, with a few typical variables that we had to attempt to work through to overcome. You hate to speak to things as such, butttt the strike zone just didn’t seem to be the same, putting our pitcher in a tough spot and she’s my ride or die so I was riding her through the storm. We had the home at-bat, and again did not go down without a fight as we loaded the bases and were able to push a couple more across home plate, but not enough to overcome the deficit.
For the week, offensively speaking we scored 54 runs… posting a team AVG of .338, with a team OPS of .860…with 6 girls posting an OPS of .952 and higher, with 3 of those above 1.026.
Tea - 1.165
Lil - 1.121
C - 1.026
Em - .956
Kyns - .955
Rea - .952
We had 20 Doubles, 1 Triple and 1 HR with 40 RBI’s.
Tea lead in hits with 11 and runs scored of 8.
Kyns lead in RBI’s with 8.
C had her first 💣.
Defensively we had a WHIP of 1.9, with 28 K’s (lead by Em with Ri right behind her), leaving 56 runners on base…allowing 44 runs (36 earned). There were some cool moments where we simply made a play, and there were a couple of moments where I was going “noooo”… and that is just part of the game and what keeps us all coming back, to see those plays that we know they can make.
The Season:
The season was long, we played 70 games total and that’s with 1 weekend being rained out. We finished overall 36-34, with 10 of those losses being 1-Run games, so that record could have easily changed a lot AND added some more games to be played as well.
Extremely proud of where this group of girls came from and where they finished. They have competed all season, they have pushed not only themselves, but each other as well as teams that a year ago they were not really pushing at all, with a handful of those turning into Wins. They have simply improved.
Now for a break (for me!) as we sit back and watch all of these ballers go do their things for their respective schools. They will each have 1 particular fan cheering them on 🙋🏻♂️and don’t be surprised when they hear that familiar voice as they enter the batters box.
Once the dust settles, we’ll lock-n-load… rinse & repeat and do it again!
Oklahoma Drive Softball
