Oklahoma lost five impact players from its 2024 starting lineup, but this is a softball program that quietly reloads and moves forward.
In less than a month, Patty Gasso and the Sooners will begin another season and set out in quest of an unprecedented fifth consecutive national championship. And they will do so with three 2025 preseason All-America selections.
Sophomores Kasidi Pickering and Ella Parker were named to the Softball America Preseason All-America First Team, and Utah transfer Abby Dalton was a second-team selection.
Pickering, who plays in the outfield, hit .389 as a freshman last season with 12 home runs and 51 runs batted in. Parker led the Sooners a year ago with a .415 batting average, 13 home runs and 62 RBI in a utility role.
Dayton led the Pac-12 in hitting last season with a .431 batting average and an on-base percentage of .510.
The Oklahoma softball program got some other good news this week. Sophia Bordi, rated as the No. 5 pitcher in the 2025 recruiting class nationally and committed to OU, reclassified and will join the Sooners for the 2025 season. Bordi is a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year in New Jersey.
Imagine this, OU student-athletes who were on the softball team in 2021 never saw a season that ended without a Women's College World Series championship.
Oklahoma finished the 2024 season with a record of 59-7 and a No. 1 ranking, which is likely where it will begin the 2025 season, which gets underway for the Sooners on Feb. 6 in San Diego against California State University-Northridge.