NORMAN, Okla. - Shelby Babcock is getting it right, at just the right time.
You can see it in the pitcher's face, entering today's NCAA softball tournament super regional series opener at OU Softball Complex.
"She's definitely getting better and better, and getting on the right track," Arizona Wildcats assistant coach Alicia Hollowell, a former Women's College World Series Most Outstanding Player, said this week. "Now, you keep seeing that brightness."
Here's a look at the best chance for the sophomore Coloradan - and likely starting pitcher today - to control the Sooners:
• One step at a time. The best way for Babcock to throw seven innings was to believe she was tossing four.
She has finished every game she started since May 5, around the time coach Mike Candrea tinkered with using Babcock to pitch the first half of the game and Kenzie Fowler the second.
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"I think it helped when Coach was saying I was going to pitch up to four innings, so I didn't really think about the whole game," Babcock said this week. "When I got to the fourth inning, it was, oh, I can finish this."
Babcock has posted a 2.36 ERA over her past seven appearances.
"We think about one thing at a time," Babcock said. "When you think about a million things at one time, it kinda gets overwhelming."
• Be careful with the Sooners. It will take a special kind of compartmentalization today. Oklahoma is second in the nation in home runs per game, sixth in slugging percentage and ninth in batting average.
Oh, and the stadium is "definitely a hitter's ballpark," Candrea said.
Babcock, who played on a high school all-star team with OU cleanup hitter Keilani Ricketts, vowed not to be intimidated.
"It's more an excited nervous," she said.
• Don't stress. Today is the biggest game of Babcock's life, but she has a plan.
"Just go out there and pitch, not fearful," she said.
The Sooners are familiar with Babcock, and she with them. Last year, she allowed one run in three innings of the super regional's first game.
"They have their returning pitchers, who know how to do this," OU coach Patty Gasso said. "They've been there. … We expect them to give everything they have."
