Apr. 11—The first four innings were all too familiar for Oklahoma State softball. They were everything the No. 3 Cowgirls hoped they weren’t, and they were everything Tulsa hoped them to be.

Less than two weeks removed from the first meeting, one in which OSU escaped with a 3-1 win in nine innings, the final matchup of the season between the Cowgirls and Golden Hurricane provided a sense of déjà vu.

Then OSU erupted, posting six runs in the bottom of the fifth en route to a 9-1, runrule victory over Tulsa in six innings Tuesday evening at Cowgirl Stadium.

“Tulsa always gives us fits,” Cowgirls coach Kenny Gajewski said. “It’s good to beat them like that because it doesn’t happen to us a lot.”

Despite his squad winning the past eight matchups dating back to the 2019 season, Gajewski is right. This marked only the second time in that span that the Cowgirls (36-3, 6-0 Big 12) have ended the game early, and freshman utility Tallen Edwards had a key role in that.

Edwards spent the first four innings in the dugout. But she was called upon to pinch hit in the bottom of the fifth with no outs and a runner on first.

And then she remembered what she laid eyes on before the game, something that she clung to until stepping to the plate, and something that motivated her to put it on the Golden Hurricane (16-21, 2-4 American).

“I had this weird feeling. Like, I saw them over here warming up, and I saw the little smirk on their faces. I was like, ‘They think they have a shot today,’” Edwards said. “And in my head, I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way.’” There was, in fact, no way. After taking three balls, Edwards unloaded on the next pitch for an RBI double in what she deemed as the most comfortable she’s felt at the plate in a couple of weeks. That knock, one Edwards thought about turning into a triple, was the beginning of an onslaught for OSU and the beginning of the end for Tulsa.

Stillwater High alum Taylor Tuck eventually drove Edwards in with an RBI double of her own. Then Tuck scored on a single from Rachel Becker. Kiley Naomi safely reached first via an error, one that plated another run. Micaela Wark walked to bring home another. And the high-scoring sequence ended after Katelynn Carwile tallied an RBI groundout.

Within 15 minutes, the Cowgirls took a game they led 3-1 and, in commanding fashion, extended their lead to 8-1.

“I feel like it kind of takes us back to the beginning of the season when we were the most hot,” said Becker, who played second base and went 2 for 4. “When we have innings like that, it just takes us back to that place where we have to remember how good we can be, and that’s what we can do every inning if we really wanted to.”

Leading up to that point, the Cowgirls struggled to capitalize with runners in scoring position. They left 11 runners on base, nine of those coming in the first four innings.

But that wasn’t an issue in the fifth, and it wasn’t an issue in the sixth, either.

Scotland David — who, similar to Edwards, had watched from the backseat until pinch-hitting in the sixth — reached on a fielder’s choice, one that didn’t matter considering the gameending run had already made its way across home plate.

“We had a lot of hits,” Gajewski said. “We just couldn’t get the two-out hit to kind of break the game open. Then we finally started to get those hits and string them together.”

That offensive surge, coupled with a four-hit outing from starting pitcher Ivy Rosenberry — who’s now 5-2 — and reliever Kelly Maxwell, propelled the Cowgirls to their fourth-straight win after losing to Wichita State on Thursday.

Gajewski didn’t want them to get too hung up on that, though. All considered, he figured dropping one to another ranked opponent on the road wasn’t going to be the end of the Cowgirls’ season. And, fortunately for them, it isn’t.

Perhaps it’s a good omen, even.

After losing to Maryland in the third game of the season, OSU rattled off 16 straight wins. After their second loss, a 7-5 defeat courtesy of then-No. 5 Florida State, the Cowgirls won 14 in a row.

Since dropping the first of two meetings against the Shockers, Gajewski and Co. have won the previous four. And they’ll have another chance to add to that when hosting UT Arlington at 6 p.m Wednesday.

“I think it was 100 percent needed,” Edwards said. “I think we were getting to a comfortable spot, and to get humbled like that before we go play another conference series, it was like — we probably needed that. It was a good slap in the face, and obviously, it’s rolling over into all of these games.”