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Oklahoma State softball: Three storylines for Cowgirls as 2024 season-opener arrives
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- Oklahoma State softball: Three storylines for Cowgirls as 2024 season-opener arrives
The goal of opening the season in Southern California is to avoid bad weather, but the Oklahoma State softball team wasn't so lucky.
The 11th-ranked Cowgirls will begin play at 4 p.m. Thursday at Cal State Northridge on ESPN+ , as originally scheduled, but Friday's action has already been changed.
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A neutral-site game against Portland State has been canceled, though OSU coach Kenny Gajewski was able to replace it with a road game at Loyola Marymount at 1 p.m. Friday.
The Cowgirls are still set to face Utah State and UC Riverside on Saturday, before the big finale, a Sunday showdown at No. 8 UCLA, set for 3 p.m. on ESPN.
Here are three storylines for the Cowgirls entering the 2024 season:
More: Oklahoma State softball coach Kenny Gajewski feels excitement, uncertainty entering season
Who's on first?
One of the first questions Gajewski was asked at OSU softball media day earlier this week was if he knew what his starting lineup for opening day would look like.
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"I don't," he said. "But I kinda do."
Here's an example of what he means. The Cowgirls have three returning starters, but one, two or all three of them could be playing different positions throughout the season.
Tallen Edwards, last year's left fielder, will be on the left side of the infield somewhere. Megan Bloodworth might be back at her regular third base spot, but she might be in the middle of the infield, where her glove can be an asset.
And first baseman Micaela Wark will usually be back in that spot, but she might also get some time in the designated player slot while Gajewski works to decide his best overall lineup.
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Caroline Wang and Audrey Schneidmiller will split time at catcher, especially early in the season. And Gajewski has a deep pool of players to rotate through the outfield.
"The first three weeks, our lineup is gonna shift a bunch," Gajewski said. "We may move people down or up, whether they're going good or not, just to see what is the best mix.
"I want to be very good at the end. I'm not concerned with the start. Obviously, you want to win. But I want to figure out what it is that will help us win in May and June."
More: Oklahoma State softball set for several national TV broadcasts during 2024 season
Oklahoma State's Lexi Kilfoyl (8) throws a pitch in the second inning during a softball game between Oklahoma State and Utah in the Women's College World Series at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in in Oklahoma City, Friday, June, 2, 2023.
Managing deep pitching staff
While much of the offseason attention regarding Oklahoma State pitchers was on the transfer of former ace Kelly Maxwell to OU , the new staff is going to demand opponents' attention.
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Lexi Kilfoyl had established herself as a front-line starter, and at times in the last month of the 2023 season, she was outperforming Maxwell.
But Gajewski and new pitching coach Carrie Eberle have a deep group of arms to work with.
While Kilfoyl is the head of the class, the Cowgirls have sophomore Kyra Aycock, who had an impressive freshman season last year, and Ivy Rosenberry, who has shown noticeable development over the offseason.
And the incoming freshman class included one of the top pitching prospects in the country, Katie Kutz, a flamethrower who is learning to improve her pitch location.
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On top of all that, Gajewski and Eberle dove into more analytical strategies for pitcher usage, modeling the pitcher-by-committee philosophy similar to what Florida State has done in recent years.
"We're gonna be more of a staff," Gajewski said. "The most important innings in games are usually four, five, six and seven. There's a lot of high-leverage situations throughout a game where maybe Ivy could be an opener and you're looking for her to get six, maybe nine outs. And then we go to Kilfoyl, who we think is our lead arm, so you go to her to close out games.
"It's a way to leverage the game and certain situations."
More: Oklahoma State softball pitching staff, young hitters show development in fall
Oklahoma State Head Coach Kenny Gajewski, right, talks with players Ivy Rosenberry, left, and Karli Godwin, center, after an inning in a fall softball game against Seminole State College in Stillwater, Okla. on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023.
Adjusting to coaching changes
Gajewski's top two assistants are not new to the program, but are new in their roles. Eberle spent one year as the pitching coach at Lipscomb before returning to Stillwater last summer, where she replaced retiring John Bargfeldt.
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And Gajewski made a midstream change at hitting coach, parting ways with Whitney Cloer in December and promoting former Cowgirl All-American Vanessa Shippy-Fletcher.
Shippy-Fletcher spent one year on staff at Syracuse but came back to OSU as a volunteer assistant until she got moved into a full-time coaching role last summer.
"She was the runner-up in the previous one," Gajewski said, referring to the hiring process when he ultimately chose Cloer in the summer of 2022. "The difference with Vanessa is she's pretty intuitive about little things," Gajewski said. "There's a pretty good system of absolutes that are defined.
"So I think we're back to who we've always been, with a little bit more direction, a little bit more going back to a foundation that we built early."
OSU vs. CSUN
OPENER:4 p.m. Thursday in Northridge, California (ESPN+)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State softball: Three storylines as Cowgirls open 2024 season
