OKLAHOMA CITY – Many of the top seeds and familiar teams will be absent when the Women’s College World Series starts Thursday.
Oklahoma softball coach Patty Gasso believes those are good reasons for her top-seeded Sooners – the reigning national champions – to be concerned heading into their WCWS opener against No. 9 seed Northwestern.
Four teams that were among the top six seeds when the NCAA Division I tournament’s 64-team field was revealed last month didn’t make it to Oklahoma City. No. 2 Florida State and No. 6 Alabama were unable to advance from regionals they hosted, while No. 3 Virginia Tech and No. 4 Arkansas fell to the same fate in super regionals last weekend.
Gasso said that means there are more teams left that overcame the odds on the road to qualify for the eight-team event that will decide the champ in Oklahoma City. Big Ten regular-season champion Northwestern, for example, rallied from a 5-0 deficit in its deciding super regional game to knock off Pac-12 champion Arizona State on the road.
“It’s that kind of fresh, free, let’s go for it, we’ve got nothing to lose mentality,” Gasso said. “That’s what you are seeing around the country right now, which makes for a pretty exciting World Series, because any of these teams can win this. It’s not just two or three.”
It’s been a strange year on the diamond, indeed. Florida is the only representative from the Southeastern Conference – a league that had sent at least two teams in each of the past 13 Women’s College World Series, including five in 2015 and four in 2016 – with current SEC champ Arkansas and 13-time WCWS qualifier Alabama among the biggest disappointments.
But parity is a real thing. Even with two-time reigning USA Softball collegiate player of the year Jocelyn Alo and a team that leads the nation in batting average, scoring and earned run average, Gasso doesn’t expect an easy run. Oklahoma’s two biggest rivals – Big 12 opponents Texas and Oklahoma State – qualified. Those two teams are responsible for the Sooners’ only two losses this season.
“Those teams that got here are still on a crazy roll,” Gasso said. “They haven’t been home for weeks, but they don’t care because they’re in this beautiful bubble right now that they don’t want to get burst with.”
A double-elimination bracket will trim the field to the two teams that will meet in a best-of-three title series set to begin next Wednesday. Thursday’s first-round schedule starts at noon Eastern on ESPN with No. 5 UCLA (48-8) versus Texas (43-19-1), followed by Oklahoma (54-2) versus Northwestern (45-11), No. 14 Florida (48-17) versus Oregon State (39-20), and No. 7 Oklahoma State (46-12) versus Arizona (38-20).
The Pac-12 got three teams in, though not the ones that might have been expected. UCLA had its usual dominant year on its way to getting into the field, but Oregon State went 9-15 in conference play and broke through.
The Beavers had a 10-game losing skid from mid-April to May 1, but seven of the losses were by one run. Since then, they’re 8-2.
“Sometimes you learn more from the losses than you do the wins,” Oregon State coach Laura Berg said. “Just a few things that go our way, we win those games.”
Traditional power Arizona tied for last place in the Pac-12 at 8-16, yet still found its way into the field in coach Caitlin Lowe’s first year stepping in for the retired Mike Candrea.
“They finished last in their conference, but they’re Arizona,” Gasso said. “They’ll always be Arizona.”