OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Sooners may face their toughest road yet at the Women’s College World Series as they seek a record-extending fifth straight NCAA Division I softball national championship.
The eight-team, double-elimination WCWS starts Thursday at OGE Energy Field at Devon Park in Oklahoma City, and the second-seeded Sooners (50-7) will open against hard-throwing Karlyn Pickens and No. 7 seed Tennessee (45-15).
In the second game of Tennessee’s best-of-three Knoxville Super Regional against Nebraska last weekend, Pickens unleashed a pitch that traveled an NCAA-record 79.4 mph as she broke a record she set earlier this year. Patty Gasso, who has led the Sooners to eight national titles and will also coach the U.S. softball team at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, hasn’t seen anything like it.
“It’s pretty amazing, really,” she said. “It’s setting a new standard.”
Gasso wouldn’t give away how her team is preparing for Pickens, but she said the Sooners are looking forward to the matchup with Tennessee, which won two of three regular-season games against Oklahoma in Norman (Pickens was the winning pitcher in both victories for the Lady Volunteers). Gasso said Pickens’ throwing speed is an example of softball’s evolution.
“It’s great for our game,” she said. “It’s phenomenal. … So it’s a challenge for the Sooners, without question, but that’s what got us here. We love challenges.”
Oklahoma counters with a formidable lineup led by Ella Parker and Kasidi Pickering, a pair of sophomores who are hitting better than .400. Oklahoma is second nationally with 115 home runs and fifth with its scoring average of 7.75 runs per game.
“We know we have an incredible opponent on Thursday, and we just want to put our best foot forward out here,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said.
Adding to the difficulty of Oklahoma’s mission is that all four teams on its side of the bracket are from the heavyweight SEC, with the Sooners and the Lady Vols joined by the third-seeded Florida Gators and the sixth-seeded Texas Longhorns. Texas (51-11), the national runner-up last season, and Florida (48-15), which reached the WCWS semifinals, will meet in the WCWS opener at noon Eastern, with Tennessee and Oklahoma to follow in the daytime session.
The night session starts at 7 and has Texas Tech (50-12) of the Big 12 facing unseeded Ole Miss (42-19) — the fifth SEC program in Oklahoma City this year — followed by No. 9 seed UCLA (54-11) and No. 16 seed Oregon (53-8), a pair of Big Ten teams, in the first day’s finale.
The teams’ seeds were their overall positions when the NCAA tournament began earlier this month with a 64-team field before whittling through the double-elimination, four-team regionals the first week, then the best-of-three super regionals last week.
The winners of each double-elimination bracket at the WCWS will play for the title in a best-of-three series starting June 4.
If Oklahoma wins a ninth national title, it will be the Sooners’ first in the SEC, which they joined ahead of the 2024-25 school year after leaving the Big 12, along with rival Texas.
Gasso wasn’t sure her team would have a chance to win the league heading into the season.
“If you asked me back in October, I would say, ‘Man, I hope we finish middle of the pack in the SEC,'” she said. “I didn’t know, nor did any of us.”
Florida coach Tim Walton recalls talking to Gasso after Oklahoma clinched the league’s regular-season title.
“I congratulated her at home plate,” he said. “And she gave me a look, and she said, ‘Did we? Because it certainly didn’t feel like it.’ I think that’s a pretty good quote. It’s her quote to me, but I think that sums up just how tough this league was this year.”
It says something about the SEC, too, that not only are some of its heavyweights at the WCWS, but that Ole Miss is the only unseeded team remaining. The Rebels beat Arizona twice to win the Tucson Regional, then beat Arkansas in the Fayetteville Super Regional that went all three games.
And, no, the Rebels aren’t just happy to be here at this phase of the postseason.
“So proud of the journey and the season that we’ve had,” Ole Miss coach Jamie Trachsel said. “We have one more chapter in our story, and we’re looking forward to having a lot to say about it here in Oklahoma City.”
Oklahoma and Texas aren’t the only WCWS regulars wearing new conference labels. Oregon facing UCLA is a meeting of former Pac-12 teams that landed in the Big Ten as part of a mass exodus — driven largely by football — from the West Coast-based conference.
UCLA will try to add to its record 12 WCWS titles with a pair of sluggers leading the way. Megan Grant has 25 home runs and 79 RBIs, while Jordan Woolery has 23 homers and 86 RBIs, and they give the Bruins a legitimate chance to add to that total.
Oregon was the Big Ten regular-season champion. The Ducks beat UCLA in two out of three meetings during a series in April.
Bruins coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said her team has improved since then.
“What I learned most was our best is yet to come,” she said. “We didn’t play our best ball.”
For the Ducks, sisters Kedre and Kai Luschar have been dominant in helping Oregon secure the program’s seventh WCWS trip but first since four in six seasons from 2012-18.
Kedre, a senior who is the younger of the two, leads the team with a .444 batting average, 61 RBIs and 17 doubles. She has scored 59 runs and has 29 stolen bases. Kai, a fifth-year senior, is second on the team with a .421 average. She leads the nation with 59 stolen bases and has scored 63 runs.
There is also a prominent former Pac-12 player in the field. Texas Tech pitcher NiJaree Canady had a goal to get her new team to Oklahoma City, and she delivered.
The star pitcher was the USA Softball collegiate player of the year last season for Stanford (which left the Pac-12 for the Atlantic Coast Conference). She helped the Cardinal reach the national semifinals two straight years before joining the Red Raiders.
This season, she helped Texas Tech win the Big 12 regular-season title, then the league tournament. The Red Raiders finally accomplished the goal of reaching the WCWS for the first time in program history by upsetting No. 5 seed Florida State last week, sweeping the Tallahassee Super Regional.
WOMEN’S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES
At OGE Energy Field at Devon Park in Oklahoma City
(Double-elimination; x-if necessary)
Thursday, May 29
Game 1: Texas (51-11) vs. Florida (48-15), noon
Game 2: Oklahoma (50-7) vs. Tennessee (45-15), 2:30 p.m.
Game 3: Texas Tech (50-12) vs. Ole Miss (42-19), 7 p.m.
Game 4: UCLA (54-11) vs. Oregon (53-8), 9:30 p.m.
Friday, May 30
Game 5: G1 loser vs. G2 loser, 7 p.m.
Game 6: G3 loser vs. G4 loser, 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 31
Game 7: G1 winner vs. G2 winner, 3 p.m.
Game 8: G3 winner vs. G4 winner, 7 p.m.
Sunday, June 1
Game 9: G5 winner vs. G8 loser, 3 p.m.
Game 10: G6 winner vs. G7 loser, 7 p.m.
Monday, June 2
Game 11: G7 winner vs. G9 winner, noon
x-Game 12: G7 winner vs. G9 winner, 2:30 p.m.
Game 13: G8 winner vs. G10 winner, 7 p.m.
x-Game 14: G8 winner vs. G10 winner, 9:30 p.m.
CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS
(Best-of-3; x-if necessary)
Wednesday, June 4
TBD vs. TBD, TBA
Thursday, June 5
TBD vs. TBD, TBA
Friday, June 6
x-TBD vs. TBD, TBA