Oklahoma softball: Reminiscing on another specatacular Sooner season
By Chip Rouse
There has been so much news and reaction the last two days surrounding the announcement of Bob Stoops’ retirement that the Women’s College World Series championship won earlier this week by the Oklahoma softball team has been pushed to the back pages.
In looking back over what has to be one of the most satisfying and rewarding seasons of Oklahoma softball in a couple of decades that had already produced three other national championships, the popular leadership mantra, “It’s not so much how you start out, but how you finish that really matters,” comes immediately to mind.
No words better describe or define the 2017 championship season of Oklahoma softball that came to a celebratory conclusion Tuesday night on OGE Energy Field with the Sooners defeating the No. 1-ranked Florida Gators, themselves national champions in two of the past four seasons, 5-4 to lay claim to their second consecutive Women’s College World Series championship.
Oklahoma began the 2017 season back in February as the defending national champions and, accordingly – with a still young, but experienced championship team returning – as the preseason No. 1 team in the nation. But the Sooners certainly didn’t live up to those accolades at the start of the 2017 campaign.