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Oklahoma softball: Sooners announce loaded 2023 schedule

By Chip Rouse

during the second game of the championship series in the Women's College World Series between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Texas Longhorns at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Thursday, June 9, 2022.Wcws Ou Texas Champ
during the second game of the championship series in the Women's College World Series between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Texas Longhorns at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Thursday, June 9, 2022.Wcws Ou Texas Champ /
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The 2023 schedule is in place for a run by the Oklahoma softball team at a national championship three-peat.

The 51-game schedule for 2023 plus the Big 12 Championship in Oklahoma City includes 14 home games at Marita Hynes Field in Norman and three Big 12 home series (Texas, Texas Tech and Kansas).

This will be the final season for Marita Hynes Field as Oklahoma is scheduled to open the 2024 season in a new $42 million venue, Love’s Field, located approximately a half-mile south of the existing facility. The new stadium will nearly double the seating capacity of Marita Hynes Field (from 1,600 to 3,000), which has been the home of Sooner softball since 1998.

Oklahoma will open the season on Feb. 9 in a contest against Duke as part of the Mark Campbell Invitational Tournament in Irvine, California.

No one will question the Sooners’ strength of schedule, which includes 20 teams that reached the NCAA Tournament last season, seven teams that appeared in the Super Regionals and four Women’s College World Series teams from the 2022 season.

The Mark Campbell Tournament will feature games against Pac-12 teams Stanford and Washington. The Sooners will have a matchup with longtime college softball juggernaut UCLA at the Mary Nutter Classic in Cathedral City, California (Palm Springs area) on Feb. 26.

In other tournament action during the season, the reigning national champion Sooners will have games against SEC teams Mississippi State and Auburn as well as Florida State, which lost to Oklahoma in championship series of the 2021 Women’s College World Series.

The Sooners will also take a mid-week road trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on April 11 to face LSU. That will be the first contest between OU and LSU since the 2016 WCWS.

This will be head coach Patty Gasso’s 29th season at the helm of Oklahoma softball. Over that time, she has led the Sooners to postseason appearances every year, including 12 consecutive appearances in the Super Regionals, 15 College World Series appearances, and six national championships.

Since Gasso has been head coach, Oklahoma has won 10 consecutive Big 12 regular-season titles and 21 overall.

OU finished the 2022 season with a record of 59-3 and 17-1 in the Big 12 and their second straight national crown.

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