Ad Disclosure
Oklahoma HC Patty Gasso says WCWS title rematch with Texas will be ‘an absolute battle’
Published:
Oklahoma will face Texas for the national championship. In a battle of the top 2 seeds in college softball, Red River rivals have the chance to make history. The Longhorns have never won the Women’s College World Series, finishing as the runner-up in 2022. The Sooners are seeking a fourth consecutive title — something that has never been done in WCWS history.
The best-of-3 WCWS Championship Series begins on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Texas took 2 of 3 games off the Sooners in Austin from April 5-7. Oklahoma got revenge with a 5-1 win in the Big 12 Tournament championship game. But the stakes are somehow even higher now. A national championship is on the line, and if you know anything about these 2 fanbases, 1 wants nothing more than to deny the other.
“We’ve got some really good momentum. We know each other very well. I don’t know that there are a lot of secrets,” said Sooners’ coach Patty Gasso on Tuesday. “It’s going to be an absolute battle.”
Oklahoma pulled off its 21st comeback win at the WCWS since 2000 on Tuesday to beat Florida and reach the championship series. The Sooners trailed 5-2 after 3 innings. A day after losing 9-3 to the Gators, OU trailed 5-4 entering the sixth inning.
But, in the end, the Sooners were just too much to put away. They kept Florida off the base path with a standout performance from pitcher Kelly Maxwell over the last half of the game. And clutch hitting from Cydney Sanders, Avery Hodge, and Ella Parker did enough to force extras.
On the fourth pitch OU faced in the bottom of the eighth, senior Jayda Coleman walked it off with a home run to left field — OU’s first walk-off win at the WCWS since 2016.
“I don’t know that I could tell you that I believed that we would be here again because it’s so difficult to get here,” Gasso said. “The way we did it was wonderful. We’re blessed. We felt that. We just took advantage of all those blessings. That’s that.”
Earlier this season, Oklahoma’s NCAA-record 71-game winning streak was snapped at home against Louisiana. The Longhorns’ series win over Oklahoma in April was the first conference series defeat since the 2011 season. And the Sooners hadn’t lost back-to-back games since 2020 before dropping the final 2 in Austin.
That series helped propel Texas to a regular-season Big 12 title, snapping a streak of 11 consecutive regular-season crowns for the modern-day dynasty in Norman.
Texas (55-8) is a deserving foil at this stage. The Longhorns reached the championship series Monday night with a 1-0 win over Stanford. Texas hit NiJaree Canady 5 times while Teagan Kavan retired 20 of the 22 batters she faced.
The Longhorns have lost just 1 game this postseason. They went 3-0 in the regional, then won the last 2 against Texas A&M in the super regional round. They beat Stanford 4-0 to open the WCWS stay, run-ruled Florida 10-0, and then came back to beat Stanford again to reach the final.
Against UT pitchers at the WCWS, opponents have 3 combined hits in 3 games.
And that puts a spotlight on Maxwell, who found herself under the gun for her start to Tuesday’s contest and, after transferring from Oklahoma State in the offseason, has been trying to live up to an impossibly high standard all season.
In 2022 and 2023, OU was able to lean on shutdown artists Hope Troutwein and Jordy Bahl. Both posted sub-1.00 ERAs.
Maxwell’s ERA stands at 2.00 after Tuesday’s contest. Still, she’s 22-2 on the season.
“I don’t think she’s out to try to prove anything, but she knows she’s a good pitcher,” Gasso said. “The fact that Kelly is going to be playing in a national championship game is one of the highlights of our season.”
The Sooners are a favorite on the moneyline for Wednesday’s Game 1 against Texas. They’re a strong favorite to win the series, with -140 odds at FanDuel. Still, Gasso is working the underdog angle ahead of her squad’s battle with the top overall seed in the field.
“We know each other very well. Kind of feel like we’re the underdogs this year. That’s okay. It’s good for us,” Gasso said. “We had to really fight our way through here. I’m proud of this group and how they did it.”
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
