Women’s College World Series: Sooners draw Baylor as opening opponent

Nov 14, 2015; Waco, TX, USA; Pylons sit on the field prior to the game between the Baylor Bears and the Oklahoma Sooners at McLane Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 14, 2015; Waco, TX, USA; Pylons sit on the field prior to the game between the Baylor Bears and the Oklahoma Sooners at McLane Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports /
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Oklahoma may have received a big break when Baylor knocked off No. 2 overall seed Arizona in the NCAA Softball Super Regionals this past weekend, serving up a very familiar opponent for the Sooners in the opening round of the Women’s College World Series.

The Sooners and Bears will square off in the final game on Thursday. The winner of that game will be back in action on Friday against the winner of the Pac-12 showdown between No. 3 Oregon and No. 6 Washington.

The OU-Baylor loser will get a day off before taking on the loser of the contest between the two Pac-12 schools. A third Pac-12 school, UCLA, is also in the WCWS field.

Baylor (48-13) may be a very familiar foe, but it is also one of just two teams that has beaten Oklahoma in the past 35 games. The Bears snapped a 17-game winning streak by the Sooners, taking a 4-3 decision in the middle game of their three-game series in April. OU is 16-1 since then.

Gia Rodoni and Kelsee Selmon, who between them have won 42 games pitching for Baylor this season, outdueled OU’s Paige Lowary in the regular-season victory over the Sooners, and first baseman Shelby Friudenberg, one of the heroes in the Bears’ Super Regional win over Arizona, drove in two runs in that game.

Defending national champion Oklahoma comes into the WCWS as the No. 10 overall seed, sixth among the eight schools remaining in the NCAA Softball Championship. Baylor is the lowest-seeded team among the eight World Series teams, at No. 15.

Oklahoma is appearing in its sixth Women’s College World Series in the past seven seasons and 11th all-time, all under head coach Patty Gasso. The Sooner head coach is in her 23rd season at Oklahoma, where she has compiled an overall record of 1,141-322-2.

In a local radio interview after the Sooners swept through the Big 12 Championship to win their sixth postseason conference tournament to go along with six consecutive regular-season championships, Gasso said she felt her team was disrespected by the NCAA selection committee in awarding Oklahoma a 10 seed in this season’s NCAA Championship.

The Sooners lost some games early in the season to top teams and the Big 12 wasn’t as strong this season as it has been in the past. These are believed to be two principal reasons why OU is seeded where it is.

Gasso and the Sooners have a chance now, in their second consecutive WCWS, to prove the experts wrong as they seek to repeat as national champions.