No. 1/1 Softball’s Gutierrez strikes out career high 10 in 5-1 loss to No. 4 Oklahoma

Saturday, May 11

Oklahoma City, OK

6:30 PM

University of Texas

47-7

Oklahoma

49-6

Oklahoma

Texas

No. 1/1 Softball’s Gutierrez strikes out career high 10 in 5-1 loss to No. 4 Oklahoma

05.11.2024 | Softball

Box Score

Citlaly Gutierrez turns in a career performance on a national stage.

By: Chris Allen Brown

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – Earlier this season, The University of Texas softball program did something against the Oklahoma Sooners the Longhorns hadn't done since 2009. A month later, Citlaly Gutierrez turned in one of the best individual strikeout performances against a Sooner lineup over the last four seasons despite UT being on the wrong end of a 5-1 result during the final game of the 2024 Phillips 66 Big 12 Softball Championship.

Over the course of the 2-hour, 11-minute contest, Gutierrez, Texas' sophomore right-handed pitcher who entered Saturday's game with a 10-0 record and a team-leading 1.44 earned run average (ERA) on the season, struck out a career-high 10 of the 29 batters she faced on the night. By virtue of being the only Longhorn pitcher used throughout the contest, Gutierrez — on 124 total pitches thrown — turned in the first 10-strikeout pitching performance against an Oklahoma Sooner lineup since two Northwestern pitchers combined to strikeout 10 in a game on March 1, 2020.

Gutierrez, whose previous career high was nine strikeouts in five innings against Texas Southern on Feb. 26, 2023, became the first Longhorn pitcher to strikeout double-digit batters in a single game since Hailey Dolcini fanned 14 of 26 Red Raiders faced in a seven-inning game in Lubbock on April 29, 2022.

Throughout her seven innings of work on the evening, Gutierrez struck out at least one Sooner batter during the game's first six innings before having her first strikeout-less frame in the top of the seventh. Along the way, the Stamford, Texas native struck out five different Oklahoma batters, including Jayda Coleman and Alyssa Brito, twice.

FROM HEAD COACH MIKE WHITE

"Congratulations to the University of Oklahoma on winning the Big 12 Championship, obviously the last time our two teams will be in this conference. It was a tough way to start for us. Obviously, you can't make mistakes against a team of that quality and expect to get away with it in the first inning. I thought Citlaly Gutierrez certainly did not deserve to give up the five runs she gave up. She pitched well enough to win the game; had 10 strikeouts against a potent offense and pitched great. But, like I told our team, we have to find ways to learn from the adversity today. I thought we had a couple of opportunities. This is a game of inches, and they made the plays, and we didn't and that's what happens. We have to find a way to recoup and learn from that and be ready to go for the postseason."

FROM SOPHOMORE PITCHER CITLALY GUTIERREZ

"I thought, going into the game, I was fully confident in myself by just knowing how good we are and just trusting my defense and offense. I was able to mix speeds. (Oklahoma) is a team that adjusts (at the plate) very fast, so you have to keep them off balance and also just working with the umpire's strike zone and what he's giving me."

GAME NOTES

A season after only having one all-tournament team selection despite playing three games including the championship game, three different Texas Longhorns were selected to the 2024 Phillips 66 Big 12 Softball Championship All-Tournament: Bella Dayton, Joley Mitchell and Katie Stewart.
- Dayton became the first Longhorn softball student-athlete to earn all-tournament status in back-to-back Big 12 Softball Championship Tournaments since Lindsay Gardner and Cat Osterman were both selected in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
- The three all-tournament team selections are the most since the 2005 squad placed four on the team.
With her run-scoring triple in the bottom of the second inning, Texas freshman Kayden Henry was credited with her first career triple.
- Henry becomes the eighth different Longhorn student-athlete with at least one triple this season.
- As a team, Texas now has 16 triples throughout the season, which ties the 2024 team with the 2011 squad for the second-most triples in a single season in program history.

UP NEXT

Following Saturday's game, the top ranked and Big 12 Conference regular season champions Texas Longhorns (47-7) will now await its postseason fate that will be revealed during the NCAA Division I Softball Selection Show at 6 p.m. CT on Sunday, May 12 on ESPN2.

FOLLOW US

For the latest information on the team, follow @TexasSoftball on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. General athletic news can also be found at @TexasLonghorns on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.