Once we discuss dynasties in school sports activities, we discuss a number of packages: Alabama soccer, UConn girls’s basketball, Duke males’s basketball.
Effectively, it’s time we add one other dynasty to the group: the College of Oklahoma’s softball program. Since 2010, the argument may be made that the Sooners’ softball program is THE most profitable school sports activities program in America.
Let’s begin with the stats. Since 2010, the Sooners have gained seven nationwide championships, together with every of the final 4 titles. For comparability, Alabama soccer has gained 4 titles complete since 2010, as have UConn males’s basketball in that very same time interval. In actual fact, the one main school sports activities program that comes near matching Oklahoma girls’s softball is UConn girls’s basketball, profitable 5 titles since 2010, together with three straight. However even then, it pales within the sheer dominance of Sooner softball. Folks have accused the Sooners’ softball program of being too dominant, and to that the Sooners simply resolve to maintain on profitable. Head coach Patty Gasso has been within the dugout for the final 31 years for the Sooners, however not too long ago the Sooners have been on a run that’s unequalled in school sports activities. Since 2020, the Sooners have gained 235 video games, 41 within the postseason. In these 4 years, they’ve misplaced the identical quantity of postseason video games as they’ve gained the Ladies’s School World Collection. 21 wins within the WCWS in that interval, pure dominance from that perspective.
What stands out about Oklahoma softball is the power to adapt and modify, whereas protecting the usual for high quality play excessive. Gasso is ready to preserve Oklahoma on the high even within the Identify, Picture and Likeness period of faculty sports activities, the place roster turnover is nearly an inevitability. But, at Oklahoma they continue to be on the pinnacle of the game as the game modifications round them. The Sooners are at all times on the switch portal, utilizing each benefit they will to stay on the high. First staff All-Pac 12 outfielder Abby Dayton is on the high of this record, however there’s much more high tier gamers coming to Norman to play for the Sooners, specifically pitcher Kelly Maxwell, who got here from Oklahoma State final 12 months. The Sooners don’t simply construct by way of the portal, nevertheless. A big majority of the Sooners’ staff is homegrown, racking up high recruiting lessons 12 months over 12 months. Icons of the game like Jocelyn Alo, Riley Boone and extra have spent years within the Oklahoma improvement program, ready for his or her probability to start out.
Dr. Katie Lever wrote in Matt Brown’s Additional Factors in regards to the Sooner softball program, and the way they preserve their place on the high of the school sports activities world. One of many ways in which they do that is by way of an offense that merely smashes each opponent they face. They swing for the fences, and once they do, they’re typically connecting. In 250 video games since 2020, the Sooners have hit 555 residence runs, nearly 200 greater than the quantity of runs they’ve given up in that very same interval. In 2023, the Sooners’ softball staff run-ruled 27 of their 55 opponents, together with each tremendous regional opponent they confronted. This isn’t simply beating all the perfect groups; that is demolishing everybody else within the sport. There’s a niche between Oklahoma and the remainder of the school sports activities world, and it’ll solely get greater as Gasso maintains her spot.
As Oklahoma strikes to the SEC within the upcoming tutorial 12 months, the highway will probably be tougher for the Sooners to keep up their hole over the remainder of the game. The SEC is residence to among the high packages within the sport—utilizing D1 softball’s ultimate high 25 ballot, 5 of the highest ten softball groups within the nation are within the SEC outdoors of Oklahoma, two of them are additionally within the high 5 with Oklahoma. Together with the transfer to the SEC comes enjoying in opposition to groups which are constantly close to the highest in spending relating to NIL, making recruiting much more troublesome. Nevertheless, if there’s one factor that the sports activities world has come to know over the past decade-plus, it’s the Oklahoma softball will nonetheless discover their solution to Omaha, smashing homers and boundaries all through the method.
