“Just to see the bats get going was really exciting,” pitcher Morgan Day said. “With the crowd that we had today, it kind of gives people a little anticipation for the weekend to come.”

In front of a sold-out Collins Family Softball Complex crowd, the Cowgirls exploded during a five-run second inning and went on to prevail 12-1 for their 18th win in the past 19 games.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Tulsa — and I know they’re not having the type of year that they’re used to — but if you don’t come in here and play well, you’ll get beat,” OSU coach Kenny Gajewski said. “I didn’t want our kids worried about anything but this game, and I think we handled that well.”

Day (8-2) earned the win, holding the Hurricane to one run on two hits and striking out nine in six innings. She has been the winning pitcher in each of her last four starts.

“I wanted Morgan Day to get a full game here,” Gajewski said. “She needs the work. You can see she’s really good and she just hasn’t gotten enough work. It was great to see that. She didn’t try to do too much.”

In the second inning, Sand Springs native Sydney Pennington got the scoring going with a three-run home run, her 10th of the season and the 47th of her career to extend her program record. Two unearned runs followed.

After being held scoreless for the next three innings, OSU had a monster sixth that started with a solo home run from Morgan Wynne, who was back in the starting lineup for the first time in close to a month. She went 3-for-3 to move to 5-for-5 in her last five at-bats.

Katelynn Carwile hit a two-run home run to extend her hitting streak to six games, and the Cowgirls (35-7) added four unearned runs for seven runs in the inning.

“I know that there were a couple of innings that were a little slow for us, but I think that our hitters are just finding different things that they need to work on personally,” Day said. “Going into another big weekend in the Big 12, if they can take things in a midweek game that they need to work on … that just a good opportunity for them to get better.”

TU (14-25-1) received its lone run in the bottom of the third when Haley Morgan went deep over the left field fence. Kailyn Bearpaw had the team’s only other hit as the Hurricane lost to OSU for a sixth game in a row but for the first time in Tulsa since 2012.

“I think it’s great for our local fans to get to come out and get to see two great Oklahoma teams perform,” Day said. “Tulsa is a really great team. It was the second time meeting up with them (including a 10-0 OSU win last month) and beating a team more than once, it’s a really difficult thing to do.”

OKLAHOMA STATE 12, TULSA 1

Oklahoma State;050;007;—;12;12;0

Tulsa;001;000;—;1;2;2

Day and Cottrill; Brown, Pochop (2), Llamas-Howell (6) and Keith. W: Day 8-2). L: Brown (2-7). HR: OSU, Carwile (5), Pennington (10), Wynne (4); TU, Morgan (4).

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