Oklahoma's 2026 NCAA Softball Championship run begins this coming weekend when the Sooners host their 15th straight regional in Norman and make their 26th NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000.
The Sooners (48-8) are the No. 3 overall seed in the 2026 NCAA Softball Championship and will host Kansas, Michigan and Binghamton this weekend in a double-elimination regional tournament.
Sooners shine more than anyone else in NCAA Softball Championship under Patty Gasso
No college team has been as dominant in the sport of softball in the first 25 years of the 21st century as Patty Gasso's Oklahoma Sooners. Since 2000, Gasso's Sooner teams have compiled an overall record of 1,378-276-2, a phenomenal .833 winning percentage. The Sooners have never failed to make the NCAA tournament in her 32 seasons as head coach.
Since the calendar turned the page to the new century, the Oklahoma softball resume shows 17 regular-season conference championships (15 in the Big 12 and two consecutive in the SEC) and 10 conference tournament championships (nine in the Big 12 and one in the SEC) and eight national titles, second most in NCAA softball history.
Two other times, the Sooners finished as national runners-up (2012 and 2019), and from 2021 to 2024, OU set a new NCAA record, winning four consecutive national championships.
Oklahoma has won 22 regional championships in its 26 NCAA Tournament appearances, including the last 15. The 2026 Norman Regional will mark the 20th time this century that the Sooners have hosted a regional, and they have been crowned champions in 19, including 14 in a row.
Read more: How to watch every inning of Oklahoma's journey to Women's College World Series
If teams win the regional tournament, they advance to one of the eight Super Regionals, which was first established as part of the NCAA championship format in 2005. The highest-seeded eight teams coming out of the regional tournaments are awarded home venues for Super Regionals.
Oklahoma has played in 18 Super Regionals in the 21 seasons since the new format debuted in 2005. The Sooners have won 13 Super Regional championships, including each of the past nine years and 11 of the 12 times OU has served as a Super Regional host site.
As successful as the Sooners have been as a team in the postseason over the past quarter century, they have also featured a number of outstanding individual players. Eight Oklahoma players have been named Most Outstanding Player of the Women's College World Series since the 2000 season: P Jennifer Stewart (2000), P Keilani Ricketts (2013), P Paige Parker (2016), INF Shay Knighten (2017), P Giselle Juarez (2021), UTL Joceyln Alo (2022), P Jordy Bahl (2023) and P Kelly Maxwell (2024). That is twice as many as any other school that has appeared in the WCWS over that time.
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