Oklahoma softball: Reminiscing on another specatacular Sooner season
By Chip Rouse
The stunning loss to North Dakota State opened the Sooners’ eyes
Oklahoma may have been the hottest team in college softball entering the postseason, but the NCAA postseason selection committee apparently didn’t see it that way. OU was ranked No. 6 in the country heading into postseason action, but the committee awarded the Sooners the No. 10 seed in the tournament.
Gasso was not alone in her belief that a seeding that low was “disrespectful” of the season her team had put together. It was apparent, however, that the selection committee placed more weight on the Sooners’ early season struggles against NCAA Tournament teams than the sensational win streak OU mustered in finishing out the regular season.
After losing the opening-round game of the NCAA Norman Regional on their home field, it appeared that the tournament selection committee might have been right after all.
That first regional game proved to be the defining moment in the Sooners’ championship run. From that point, the Sooners rebounded to win four consecutive elimination games and capture the regional championship. Against Tulsa, OU was down to its final at bat and trailing the Golden Hurricane by a couple of runs before rallying for a come-from-behind 4-2 victory in 10 innings.
After OU’s WCWS championship series win over Florida, sophomore first baseman and World Series hero Shay Knighton talked about how the regional loss to North Dakota State woke the Sooners up and fueled their performance for the rest of the postseason:
"“We thought, OK, well, regionals, we can just roll through our regionals, roll through supers and get to the World Series,” Knighton said. “We thought it was that easy, and losing to North Dakota State was huge for us because we all had the wide eyes at that point. “We were like, ‘What just happened?’ We all put our heads together – coaching staff, support staff, everyone. We knew that something had to change, and we figured it out, and we just went from there.”"
The Sooners won their regional to stay alive as defending champions, but they still had much work to do to repeat as national champions. The next step in the journey was to go on the road to Auburn in the Super Regionals and go up against the team they defeated in last season’s WCWS and the same team they lost to in the opening game of the 2017 season.