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Oklahoma softball: Sooners on record-setting win trajectory

By Chip Rouse

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA - JUNE 10: The Oklahoma Sooners react with Giselle Juarez #45 after she pitched the final out to win Game 3 of the Women's College World Series Championship against the Florida St. Seminoles at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium on June 10, 2021 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Sooners won 5-1. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA - JUNE 10: The Oklahoma Sooners react with Giselle Juarez #45 after she pitched the final out to win Game 3 of the Women's College World Series Championship against the Florida St. Seminoles at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium on June 10, 2021 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Sooners won 5-1. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) /
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For one Sooner sports program the number 47 is of epic significance, and the Oklahoma softball team is not only on the verge of matching that magical achievement but raising it.

Patty Gasso’s Sooner softball crew is riding a 38-game win streak, all but two of which have come this season. In a three-game sweep of Texas Tech last weekend, OU improved its record to a perfect 36-0 for the 2022 season, the best start to a season in NCAA Division I softball history.

The Sooners’ 38-game win streak, which dates back to the Women’s College World Series last season, is tied for the fourth longest in NCAA history but is just the third longest in OU softball history.

With one more win, Oklahoma will equal a previous 39-game win streak set by the 2020-21 Sooner squad, and three more consecutive wins will tie the longest win streak in OU softball history at 41 games.

But the Sooners have their eye on an even bigger number. The 1996-97 Arizona Wildcats own the all-time record for consecutive wins, which stands at 47.

Interestingly, the number 47 also represents the longest win streak in college football history, which is owned by Oklahoma teams spanning the 1953 through 1957 seasons. OU football also owns win streaks of 31 games (tied for the ninth longest in NCAA history) and 28 games (tied for 17th longest).

The previous record for the best start to a college softball season was held by UCLA. The 1999 Lady Bruins’ team won 35 consecutive games to start that season.

The top-ranked Sooners will have a stern challenge to their current nation-best win streak when they travel to Austin, Texas, this weekend for a three-game Red River Showdown against the 18th-ranked Texas Longhorns.

The reigning national champions have faced four ranked teams this season. The Lady Longhorns will be number five.

At no time during the current season, has Oklahoma’s dominance been more apparent than in the Sooners’ series last weekend at Texas Tech. OU pitchers posted consecutive shutouts in all three games, outscoring the Red Raiders by a combined 43-0 and allowing just three total hits in the process. Thirty of the 43 Oklahoma runs were the result of 17 long balls that left the park.

Thirty of OU’s 36 wins this season have been decided by run rule, ending in fewer than the official seven innings. Twenty-one have been shutouts and in 10 others the opponent was held to just one run.

Oklahoma has had virtually no drop off from its nation-best offensive numbers from a year ago. The Sooners ended the 2021 season leading college softball in scoring, hitting, home runs, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. A little past the halfway point of the current season, OU leads Division I softball again in all of those statistical categories.

The Sooners have hit 100 home runs as a team. They led the country last season with 161 long balls. Jocelyn Alo, who set a new NCAA career home run record this season. lead the team and all of college softball with 21 round-trippers already this season. Four Sooners have hit at least 10 home runs this season. Sooner players have hit two or more home runs in an inning 22 times this season, and an OU player has hit two or more four-baggers in a game 16 times.

What’s noticeably different, Patty Gasso says, about this year’s team compared with last year’s national championship squad that went 56-4 is the pitching performance.

A year ago, OU pitchers combined for a staff earned run average of 2.49. That ranked 17th best in Division I softball. That was better than a full run behind the top-ranked 1.23 ERA posted by Michigan. So far this season, the Sooners have a combined ERA of 0.60 and opposing hitters are batting just .133 against OU pitchers.

All three Oklahoma starting pitchers — Hope Trautwien, Nicole May and freshman sensation Jordy Bahl — rank in the nation’s top 10 in ERA. All three are under 1.00, with Trautwein’s 0.12 leading the nation.

The Sooners are on a record-setting pace to break several team and NCAA records this season, but they remain firmly fixed on the primary goal of winning back-to-back NCAA championships for a second time in the past seven seasons.

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