Sydney Romero continues to be the biggest hit at the Women's College World Series

— -- OKLAHOMA CITY -- It was a moment borrowed from a movie script waiting to be written. Oklahoma freshman Sydney Romero stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the fifth inning of the biggest game of her life -- the opener of the best-of-three championship round of the Women's College World Series against Auburn.

The younger sister of the nation's best player -- their California clan quickly becoming the first family of softball -- she had an opportunity to extend the legend.

She swung hard. The ball jumped off her bat and raced past the pitching circle. It sped right into the glove of Auburn second baseman Emily Carosone, who stepped on second base and threw to first base ahead of Romero to complete the inning-ending double play.

All you can do as a hitter is hit the ball hard. The rest is often out of your hands.

So Romero had to settle for the three-run home run she hit a couple of innings earlier:

The home run that backed up an efficient pitching performance from Paige Parker.

The home run that made the runner on third base so important when Oklahoma first baseman Shay Knighten knocked down a hard line drive in the seventh inning, gathered both her wits and the ball and threw a strike to the plate to beat a runner who paid the price for a second of hesitation.

The home run that put the Sooners a win away from the national championship after a 3-2 win in Game 1.

All things considered, that is some kind of consolation.

As the sunset shadows crept from behind the third-base stands across the field during the course of Monday's game, Romero continued to escape any shadow cast by older sister Sierra, the USA Softball Player of the Year whose Michigan team was eliminated a day earlier.

The name sounds familiar, but it now stands on its own.

It's a name Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso says each time the player rounds third base after a home run, an almost Pavlovian response. She can't stop saying it.

"Syd in the early part of the year was always Sierra's little sister Syd," Gasso said. "We needed to establish Sydney Romero. Thus, every time she rounds third, I say 'Sydney Romero' because I want Sydney Romero to be Sydney Romero. In honor of her sister Sierra, who taught her how to swing the bat proudly. And her dad and her family; they're a very tight-knit family. So she's doing it for her family, for her sister.

"But this is Syd Romero that's doing it. It's been pretty cool to see her really kind of gravitate and understand that."

At a program with no shortage of family connections -- Romero, Knighten and outfielder Nicole Pendley are all the younger siblings of All-Americans, past and present -- Romero is doing it with help from someone who knows what it's like to both represent and bear the burden of a last name.

"I just had my game plan," Romero said of her home run. "I was talking with my hitting coach before, and we had a game plan, and I stuck with it and executed it."

That would be hitting coach J.T. Gasso, who is in his first year in that role at Oklahoma after serving in the same role at Michigan State a season ago. And as the name suggests, the head coach's son. Whatever the specifics of the plan discussed, the result was Romero keeping her hands on top of a changeup from Auburn starter Lexi Davis that was high and out of the strike zone and driving it over the center-field fence.

It was her second home run of the World Series and fourth of the NCAA tournament.

A surprise starter who hadn't pitched since a brief relief appearance in a regional final, Davis fared as well against Oklahoma as any pitcher this week. But a pitch that she might have gotten away with against a lot of hitters too eager to swing under the ball didn't escape Romero.

"You don't have to be perfect, just swing hard," J.T. Gasso said of the approach the two work on. "Early on in the year, she was just trying to put balls in play, but then once she started to settle in a little more, she started to drive the ball. You're starting to see it now. She might not get the result she wants, but she's always at least swinging hard. The end result is hard-hit balls, and that's what she's satisfied with."

It's why they were satisfied with the process that led to the double play, if not the result. It was a good swing; it just happened to come against even better defensive positioning.

But Romero got all of the pitch that mattered most this night. And it grows more and more difficult to believe it's a coincidence each time she delivers in a big moment.

"She's got just a special ability to make things happen in the clutch when it's not there," the elder Gasso said. "What I mean by it's not there, it might be a pitch that's out of the zone, but she can handle it. Her ability to handle different pitches at different times is really impressive."

The thing is, she didn't say that after the fact on Monday. The Oklahoma coach said it in February, before Romero ever swung a bat in an official college game. It took some time, required some growing pains, but this is who Romero is.

"Just unbelievable God-given hand-eye coordination is part of it, something you can't really teach," J.T. Gasso said. "So thank the Romeros for that family gene.

"She's just an incredible natural athlete, on top of being a relentless competitor."

No program knows better than Oklahoma that winning Game 1 stacks the odds in your favor, but it doesn't clinch anything. In 11 previous best-of-three finals (the World Series ended with a single-game championship round prior to 2005), the team that lost Game 1 rebounded to win the next two games on just three occasions. But one of those came in 2012, when Alabama lost the opening game to Oklahoma and rallied to win the championship.

Now the Sooners have a pitching decision to make. They have to decide if the contact Auburn made all night is proof it's time to give Parker some rest. They have to continue to execute defensively. They have to, frankly, do more with their at-bats than they did Monday, with the exception of Romero's blast.

What they hope allows them to manage all those details is the character of the team. This team had to work to find its identity.

It isn't easy to exist in the shadow of someone with the same last name. Asked what it's like to watch her son work with Romero on the hitting mechanics that fuel the confidence and performance that are carving out Romero's own identity on the softball field, Gasso said "prideful."

Then she stopped, the emotion on her face speaking for words that wouldn't come.

It's why J.T. Gasso, from at least the moment the bus doors open at Hall of Fame Stadium until the return trip to the hotel begins, calls her by one, and only one, title.

"You won't hear me say the other one," he said. "It's Coach."

It's all about finding your own identity.

And the name everyone is saying loud and clear these days is Sydney Romero.