TEMPE – With all minds wondering what the No. 3 Oklahoma Sooners would bring into the new season, it was a familiar name to Sun Devil Softball fans who was the focal point of Thursday night’s primetime game between the two programs.
Four hours after Arizona State dispatched of Toledo, 4-1, to open the 2026 Kajikawa Classic, Arizona State senior right-handed pitcher Kenzie Brown took the pitching circle at Farrington Stadium against last season’s Women’s College World Series semifinalist. But despite the Sooners leaving town with a nerve-wracking 2-1 victory, it didn’t take long for the 2025 consensus All-American to show why she was just that.
Brown (0-1) struck out Oklahoma leadoff batter Ella Parker on three pitches to begin the game. And then Kasidi Pickering went down swinging, too, three pitches later.
Brown went on to retire the side on just eight pitches.
She worked around a two-out, infield single in the second with another pair of swinging strikeouts. And then more of the same followed in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
By the top of the seventh, no opposing pitcher over the last seven seasons – immediate Oklahoma softball records only date back to 2020 – had struck out as many Sooner batters in a single game as Brown: 13. The previous high was 10 set by Texas’ Citlaly Gutierrez during the Big 12 Championship game on May 11, 2024.
Even though she surrendered a one-out, two-run home run in the top of the sixth to give Oklahoma a 2-1 lead on the scoreboard, it was Kenzie Brown’s night.
FROM HEAD COACH MEGAN BARTLETT
“Opening night … I thought our girls competed tremendously well. They certainly got a taste of what a Super Regional, Women’s College World Series game looks and feels like, so I’m excited. I’m excited for this year. It’s a talented bunch. They’re locked in and they’re hungry, which is going to make them dangerous.”
FROM SENIOR PITCHER KENZIE BROWN
“No one expected us to be in that game. Obviously, we weren’t favored, but it takes at bats from players like (Kaylee Pond) to keep us in the game and then just an all-around great team effort defensively. We were making defensive plays in both games today that we weren’t making over the last three seasons, so I think we are on the right track.”
GAME NOTES
- 2,373 was the announced attendance for Thursday night’s game between Oklahoma and Arizona State. The figure set a new Sun Devil Softball program record for highest attended home game, surpassing the previous mark of 2,264 set against Arizona on March 30, 2014.
- With her 246-foot solo home run in the bottom of the third, first-year Sun Devil Kaylee Pond has now hit a home run in two of her last three games played against Oklahoma dating back to her final season at Cal in 2025. Pond also hit a solo home run in the top of the second against the Sooners on May 17, 2025, before facing OU, again, the following day.
- With its 4-1 win over Toledo to begin Thursday’s action, Arizona State has now won back-to-back season-opening games for the first time since the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
- Kenzie Brown’s 13-strikeout performance against Oklahoma marked the most strikeouts in a single regular season road goal since March 1, 2020, when the Sooners struck out 10 times at Northwestern.
- Aissa Silva, a senior left-handed pitcher out of Tucson, made her Arizona State debut in the closing innings of the Sun Devils’ three-run victory over Toledo as the Arizona transfer earned her first save on the season by tossing two scoreless frames to seal the ASU win.
UP NEXT
- After pausing from Kajikawa Classic action to square off against the third-ranked Sooners, Arizona State (1-1) will resume its non-conference tournament play on Friday, Feb. 6, when the Sun Devils take on Texas State (1-0) at 6:15 p.m. MST. The Bobcats are coming off an 8-2 win over Toledo (0-2) during a Thursday afternoon matinee meeting.
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