After three road trips to open the season, Oklahoma finally gets a much-needed home stand.

The Sooners (13-2) play 14 of their next 15 games at home, giving them an extended stay at Love’s Field. They’ll spend the next three weekends in Norman after opening the season with road trips to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.

The home stand gives the Sooners an opportunity to relax, recover and build on the good and bad from the first 15 games of the season. Here’s a few notes from OU coach Patty Gasso’s media session on Tuesday:

Weekend schedule

6 p.m. Thursday, Alabama State, SECN+

2 p.m. Friday, Sam Houston State, SECN+

5:30 p.m. Friday, Alabama State, SECN+

2 p.m. Saturday, Sam Houston State, SECN+

5:30 p.m. Saturday, Alabama State, SECN+

12:30 p.m. Sunday, Southeastern Louisiana, SECN+

Sooners learn valuable lessons over the weekend

The Sooners posted a 5-1 record at the Mary Nutter Classic last weekend, but Saturday was a particularly rough day.

The Sooners dropped their first game to Long Beach State, 6-4 — a game they trailed by four runs heading into the seventh inning, they fell behind by three runs to California before eventually rallying to win 7-5.

They responded to a rough day with a 15-2 blowout win over Washington on Sunday, the kind of response Gasso needed to see. But there were plenty of lessons to learn from Saturday.

“If you’re going to lose to anyone, it should be my alma mater,” Gasso joked, “but I didn’t like that on the other side. (The message was), if you think you can get away with playing average and thinking it’s good enough to win and beat anyone, you’re wrong. We didn’t have the mentality, we didn’t have the energy, we didn’t have the focus, we didn’t have — to be honest — a lot of leadership that’s recognizing this and saying, ‘Stop this right now.’

“So it was really frustrating to watch that. And then, the second game against Cal didn’t go that much better. Same thing could have happened to us. So we just didn’t have a good Saturday and it was frustrating. We talked about it, and it was more of like, we need to present who we are on Sunday. It’s a ranked team, it’s Washington and we have big history them so it would send a message, not necessarily to Washington, but to ourselves. Showing us how we have to come out play every week. We could have fallen asleep from the last weekend. We got a lot of unworthy praise, and that showed.”

Isabela Emerling finding her spot?

It was clear early that freshman catcher Kendall Wells was going to be too good to keep off the field. That put Isabela Emerling in a tough spot.

However, the veteran has responded in a real way.

Emerling has started 10 of 15 games and finding a real spot in the rotation at first base. She’s also displayed much more consistency at the plate — she’s batting .419 at the plate with a .486 on-base percentage, and she’s blasted five home runs.

It’s still early in the season, but Emerling’s response has been encouraging.

“She has raised her hand and said, ‘I want to help lead,’” Gasso said. “She’s got a great voice… She’s probably the most heard voice of all the players. I think Kendall coming here is one of the hardest things maybe she’s had to deal with, but one of the best things because you have to — anytime you have somebody standing next to you, you gotta raise your game and she has raised her game. She has also raised her game at first base.

“Both of those catchers have learned how to play good first base because if you want to be in the lineup and you’re not catching, you can’t play anywhere else, where am I supposed to put you? So they have worked really hard to learn that position and play it and be in the lineup. I think Kendall here has — she may not admit it, but I think it’s one of the best pushes she’s had in her career.”

Miali Guachino starting to emerge

Audrey Lowry was the standout pitcher through the first two weekends. But last weekend, it was Guachino who was the most effective in the circle.

Guachino pitched 13.2 innings in five appearances, allowing just 12 hits, six earned runs and three walks while striking out 19 batters. It was an encouraging performance after she showed flashes the previous weekend, and her ability to generate strikeouts has stood out in OU’s crowded pitching staff.

“I’ve seen it in glimpses in her at Ole Miss,” Gasso said. “So I know she has it. It’s just sometimes they make this program too big and they feel like they have to be perfect playing in it and we’re showing them they don’t need to be. Our offense will score runs for you. She did a really good job. She gave up two homers after we scored quite a few against Washington, but after that she got it out of her system. She really went to work. So I’m really excited about the pitcher that she’s about to become.”