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Oklahoma softball: Sooner assistant coach wins national award

By Chip Rouse

Oklahoma Associate Head Coach Jennifer Rocha talks the team in the Women's College World Series softball game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the UCLA Bruins at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Monday, June 6, 2022. UCLA won 7-3.
Oklahoma Associate Head Coach Jennifer Rocha talks the team in the Women's College World Series softball game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the UCLA Bruins at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Monday, June 6, 2022. UCLA won 7-3. /
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Oklahoma softball associate head coach Jennifer Rocha joins a host of Sooners receiving national honors this season as the winner of the 2023 Easton/NFCA Division I Assistant Coach of the Year award.

Rocha, who played at Oklahoma from 1996-98 and was a graduate assistant there for three season after her playing career ended, has been on head coach Patty Gasso’s staff since 2019. She has been onboard for the Sooners’ three consecutive national championships (2021-23).

This is the second time Rocha has been so honored. She won the award previously while at Florida in 2015.

As the Sooners’ pitching coach, Rocha led a 2023 Oklahoma staff that led the nation with a collective ERA of 0.96.as well a nation-best 32 shutouts in 62 games.

Oklahoma pitchers this past season produced four no-hitters and one perfect game and allowed just 53 earned runs the entire season. The Sooners’ four-person rotation, composed of Jordy Bahl, Nicole May, Alex Storako and Kierston Deal, struck out 460 batters and held opponents to a paltry .162 batting average.

Three of the Sooner pitchers (Bahl, May and Storako) were All-Big 12 selections this season. Bahl, who entered the transfer portal after the season to return home and play at Nebraska her final two seasons, is a two-time First-Team All-American, 2023 Big 12 Pitcher of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player in this year’s Women’s College World Series.

In addition, Storako was named 2023 Transfer Player of the Year.

Between stops at Oklahoma, Rocha has worked as an assistant at Oregon, Wichita State and Florida. As a pitcher at OU, she won 44 games, lost 17 and had an ERA of 1.57 over three seasons.

The winners of the NFCA Division I Assistant Coach of the Year award are nominated by NFCA member coaches and voted on by a panel of their peers on the NFCA Awards Committee.

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