With one strike in the bottom of the fourth inning, Mack Leonard gave Florida State the lead as her team attempted to force a Game 3 in the Women’s College World Series.
It took all two batters.
Reflecting the dominance it has shown all season, Oklahoma opened the top of the fifth inning with back-to-back home runs on Thursday. The Sooners then tacked on an insurance run in the sixth to beat Florida State 3-1 to win a third straight national title in front of a partisan crowd of over 12,000 to a packed stadium in Oklahoma City. The Sooners also defeated Florida State in 2021.
Only one other program, UCLA from 1988 to 1990, had won three straight titles. But the Sooners run extends beyond the 2020s. They’ve won six national championships in the past 10 years, and seven in the program’s history, all under Coach Patty Gasso. Only UCLA and Arizona have more.
Choose just about any stat and the Sooners figure will be at the top of the list.
Home runs? Yes. Slugging rate? Naturally. Runs per game? Naturally.
What about pitching? They also lead in ERA.
It all adds up to 53 consecutive wins, surpassing the 47-game streak that Arizona combined in 1996 and ’97 for an NCAA Division I record. Oklahoma’s only blemish was a 4-3 loss to Baylor in February.
In a television interview after the game, Gasso said the weight of the team’s high hopes and streak was “suffocating”.
“They treated it like champions and that’s why we’re here now,” she said of her players.
Oklahoma was also a juggernaut last year, getting off to a record 38-0 start. Two key players from that team were at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium on Thursday but not on the field. Jocelyn Alo, who finished her college career as a career home run leader, was in the stands, and star pitcher Hope Trautwein was on the coaching staff.
Enter the transfer portal. Thursday’s starting pitcher, Alex Storako, struckout 300 batters last year in Michigan. The No. 3 batter, Haley Lee, came to Oklahoma after four seasons with Texas A&M, where she hit 40 home runs in her last two years. And the No. 7 batter, Cydney Sanders, came to the program after hitting 21 home runs and earning first-team U.S. honors as a freshman at Arizona State.
There were also several key leavers, including Tiare Jennings, Jayda Coleman and Jordyn Bahl, who were among the final 10 Candidates for Player of the Year this season. Alyssa Brito, in her second year after moving from Oregon, tied Jennings and Coleman with 17 home runs.
However, the accolades and outstanding record don’t mean Oklahoma hasn’t been put to the test in Oklahoma City. Standout Stanford freshman pitcher NiJaree Canady mostly kept the Sooners bats in check in the teams first game of the last eight, and the Cardinal pushed Oklahoma to overtime in a semifinal.
Then Florida State appeared to have found an opening in Game 2. Kathryn Sandercock wriggled out of a problem with the bases loaded and no out in the top of the third, and in the bottom half, with two runners on base, Kalei Harding sent a drive to the midfield fence.
But Coleman ran back, timed her jump and robbed a home run for the second straight year in the championship series, snatching the ball and, in effect, everyone’s chances of beating Oklahoma.
Sanders and the captain, Grace Lyons, hit the tying run and home runs. Hereafter, Bahl, who threw a two-hit shutout in Game 1, came on in relief. She retired all nine batters she faced to close out the win and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Series.
After all the fanfare and anticipation built up over the season, one final swing and miss kicked off the festivities. It also brought, said Gasso, “freedom.”
