Oklahoma softball: Sooners No. 1 overall seed in NCAA Championship

By Chip Rouse | May 17, 2021

COLUMBUS, OH - MARCH 22: The NCAA logo on the floor before the third round of the 2015 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament against the Dayton Flyers at the Nationwide Arena on March 22, 2015 in Columbus, Ohio. The Sooners won 72-66. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) /

Oklahoma softball has been No. 1 in the country for a dozen straight weeks and the Sooners enter the postseason as the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Division I Softball Championship.

This marks the third time in program history that Oklahoma has earned the top over all seed. They were also the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Championship in 2013 and 2019. OU won the national championship in 2013. They were runners-up to UCLA in the 2019 Women’s College World Series, the last time the NCAA postseason was held. The 2021 college softball season was cancelled in March because of the nationwide coronavirus outbreak.

OU (45-2) will host the Norman Regional, one of 16 regional locations across the country. The Sooners will welcome Wichita State (39-11), Texas A&M (31-21) and Morgan State (24-15) to Marita Hynes Field beginning on Friday.

Wichita State will play Texas A&M in the first game of the double-elimination regional tournament on Friday. That game will be followed by OU taking on Morgan State, with the first pitch scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT.

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Three games are scheduled on Saturday. Friday’s winners will play the first game on Saturday. The losing teams from Friday face each other in an elimination game, then the losing ream from the first game on Saturday will play the winner of the second game, with the winner moving on to the championship round on Sunday.

Oklahoma has been a top-16 seed in the NCAA Softball Championship for 14 years in a row and is a regional host site for the 10 consecutive year.

Those who follow college softball closely were projecting that reigning national champion UCLA (41-4) would secure the top overall seed on the basis of a better strength of schedule.

Selection committee chairman Matt Larsen, the athletic director at North Dakota State, explained that when you’re evaluating two teams of the quality level of OU and UCLA, you’re really splitting hairs.

“When it gets down to deciding who’s No. 1, a couple of things really stood out,” Larsen said on ESPN2’s softball selection show Sunday night. What gave Oklahoma the deciding nod, he said, was the Sooners’ unbelievable explosiveness offensively in both conference and nonconference and their consistency throughout the year.

Larsen also mentioned the OU had a little better record against teams already in the tournament.

The Sooners dominance offensively has been unprecedented this season. OU leads Division ! softball in several major statistical categories, including team batting average, home runs, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Oklahoma is one of five Big 12 teams to make the 64-team tournament field. Big 12 runner-up Oklahoma State is the No. 5 seed and a regional host site. Texas is the No. 12 seed and is also hosting one of the regionals. Baylor and Iowa State also made the field.

The regional winners will advance to the Super Regionals the following weekend, which will be held at eight different campus sites. That will get the field down to eight teams that will compete for the national championship in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

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