OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Fans in the outfield turned their gaze toward left field as Oklahoma’s Kelly Maxwell jogged out of the bullpen. The Sooners were four outs away from a national championship, and Maxwell’s entrance was met with enthusiasm and a collective deep breath.
The Sooners already felt in control of their fate, but coach Patty Gasso was putting in her ace to close this championship series against No. 1 Texas. Maxwell, later named the Women’s College World Series most outstanding player, did just that, clinching the Sooners’ 8-4 win to sweep the championship series and make Oklahoma the first team to four-peat as national champions in college softball history.
Oklahoma is familiar with this stage, but the players and Gasso are sure to point to the challenges that come with reaching this level of success again, and again, and again. This season especially, the pressure mounted, senior outfielder Jayda Coleman said.
“As we went on, if we lost one game, two games, lost to Texas, everyone had an opinion about us,” Coleman said. “It was frustrating just to see everyone on Twitter, TikTok hoping anybody else but us.”
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She shrugged. “Well … that didn’t happen, so …”
With eight national titles and 17 WCWS appearances since 2000, Oklahoma’s dynasty has been building for some time. In the past four national championship seasons, OU has compiled a record of 235-15.
As the wins stacked, skepticism followed. Oklahoma lost more games this season (seven) than it did since 2017. Texas dethroned the Sooners as the top seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years. Doubters pointed to these as signs of vulnerability, while comments about the home crowd advantage OU enjoys by playing the WCWS 20 miles up the road from campus stirred frustration and conversations about rotating the event.
“It’s probably the hardest coaching season that I’ve had in a while because of a lot of the naysayers,” Gasso said. “Heavy is a head that wears the crown is the one thing that really stuck out. I heard someone say that. That really has felt true. It’s been exhausting.”
But as the noise around the team increased, Oklahoma maintained its identity on the field.
“Love us or hate us, I feel like there has to be some level of respect there from what we’ve done for softball, for women’s sports,” senior pitcher Nicole May said. “It’s just crazy to see the growth of this sport, and I just hope to see it keep growing.”
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Texas coach Mike White pointed to Oklahoma’s ability to “reload and continue to get premier players into their program” as one of the factors that continuously puts the Sooners on top. Freshman outfielder Kayden Henry and sophomore infielder Viviana Martinez pointed to the Sooners’ veteran roster as the biggest difference: Oklahoma’s 10-player senior class has anchored each championship run.
In that class are Coleman, Tiare Jennings, Rylie Boone, Alyssa Brito and Kinzie Hansen, who all rank in the top 10 in program history in career batting average. The trio of Maxwell — who transferred to OU this season from rival Oklahoma State — May and Karlie Keeney anchor the pitching staff. Infielder Alynah Torres and utility player Riley Ludlam close out that dynastic senior class. The five who have been at OU since the start of their careers — Coleman, Jennings, Boone, Hansen and May — never went through a postseason without a national title.
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(Top photo: Tyler Schank / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)