The Sooners have done it again and broken a few records in the process. Oklahoma Sooners softball has taken home their third straight NCAA National Championship. The Sooners defeated the Florida State Seminoles in two games and extended their win streak to 53 games.
The Sooners won in 2021 and 2022 while the Seminoles’ last title was in 2018. Florida State and Oklahoma met in the 2021 championship where Oklahoma started its national title winning streak.
Either title would be impressive on its own, but doing it all at the same time is well, history-making. The Sooners now hold the longest win streak in college softball history, far surpassing the 1996-1997 Arizona Wildcats who held the record previously at 47 games.
It had been 367 days since the Sooners lost a game in the Women’s College World Series. However, the journey this season hasn’t been smooth sailing.
“I think this really was the roughest (season) I’ve ever had to go through just because of with lots of fans and the growth of the sport comes a lot of pressure. I think I’ve felt that and they (our players) have felt that,” said head coach Patty Gasso.
The Sooners are now “only the second team in history to win three consecutive national titles (UCLA 1988-90).”
“It’s so crazy to see how our lives have changed,” Gasso said. “The fans in Oklahoma are absolutely fantastic, (but) it starts to feel like you’re getting smothered a little bit because everybody wants something. I heard (our players) talking about it. For all of us it’s different. I just want to coach. All of a sudden, your life isn’t regular anymore. So that’s really where they talk a little bit about mental health. It’s so different being a student-athlete now. I mean, it’s completely different. The expectations of everything. The fact that we got here and we won this is just mind-boggling with all of the wave of pressure and so forth. I could not be more proud of this group.
“To be sitting up here and telling you this is still kind of amazing because everybody’s out to get us. They want to bring down the Evil Empire, whatever it is. I don’t know. We just want to play ball. That’s all. Jayda Coleman wants to rob home runs. Tiare Jennings wants to hit doubles and be clutch. That’s how they’re made.”
This is the seventh national title in program history and the sixth in the past 10 years for Patty Gasso’s Sooners.