NORMAN – OU head coach Patty Gasso took just a moment to reflect on the Sooners’ season.
Going into the year, Gasso was coming off of a year where she guided the greatest softball class to its fourth straight national championship and had a statue of herself placed in front of Love’s Field – OU softball’s stadium. When she looks at the record her 2025 squad has, it still gets to her as they’ve rallied for a 39-5, 13-5 SEC mark. It has them ranked fourth in the country and tied for second in the tough SEC, just one game back from Texas A&M.
“I know what Sooner fans are saying, what their expectations are,” Gasso said. “I am so proud of what these guys have done thus far. And I don’t know if I even said it out loud to you all, but never would I ever believe that we would be tied for second in the SEC with this team that we have and a new pitching staff and a completely new infield with the exception of Cydney Sanders, a broken down Ella Parker and, you know, Kasidi Pickering and Nelly leading us, a freshman captain. We have a freshman captain. That tells the whole story. So I’m just so proud of them and what they’ve continued to fight and trust our coaching staff.”
There are just two weekends left in the regular season and Oklahoma has the opportunity to beef up their RPI rankings with likely the toughest schedule the rest of the way: No. 3 Texas and No. 6 Florida. First up, are the Longhorns in a three-game series beginning Friday at Love’s Field. The teams are scheduled to play at 5 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
Even though the Sooners have had to play many different teams, they return home to battle a familiar foe. Throughout the regular season and World Series matchups over the past three years, Oklahoma is 13-3 against Texas. The last time the teams played was in the Big 12 Championship game and the WCWS National Championship game, where the Sooners won both matchups. Now, with many new faces, the Sooners will try to protect their home field as Texas won the last series down in Austin.
“OU-Texas is always a big weekend, whatever sport it is,” OU outfielder Hannah Coor said. “But I think it’s a little extra special, just the history we have with their softball program the last few years. So, it’s exciting to relive that and get all the newcomers on board now with what’s going on. Just the way we’ve been about it — I’m excited.”
OU is coming off of a series sweep of Mississippi State, where they plated 19 runs across the three-game series and stormed back from 4-0 deficits in consecutive games — It was the first time No. 17 Mississippi State had been swept all season.
“For us to be able to pull that off,” Gasso said of the sweep, “was wonderful for our morale, confidence and pitching staff. And the chase that we’re in. We don’t talk too much about it, but we do understand that we’re in the chase.”
However, the Longhorns pose a unique challenge. While Oklahoma graduated nearly all of its players of last year’s team, Texas brought back many of its lineup. As a result, Texas bolsters a powerful offense with the fifth-best team batting average in the country at .359 led by Mia Scott and Reese Atwood. The Longhorns are also in the top 10 in pitching, led by sophomore Teagan Kavan.
“They’ve got it all,” Gasso said. “So, this is a huge challenge for us. We’ve gotta have some success off of their pitching staff — have a good game plan, stick to it, not get too high, not get too low, just keep staying in the game, staying ahead of the game the best that we can, both with our minds and with the scoreboard.”
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