Oklahoma City is center stage in the college softball world for the next nine days as eight teams battle it out in the Women's College World Series for the honor of becoming the best of the best as 2026 national champions.
The one constant for more than a decade at the Women's College World Series has been the Oklahoma softball team. The Sooners and their faithful have been to the last nine WCWS and 12 of the last 13. No other team has been that regular of a participant at the signature event in college softball.
During OU's magical string of nine consecutive WCWS appearances, 26 different schools have taken part in the tournament. UCLA is the next closest with seven appearances over that time, Florida was a participant in six of the nine seasons and Alabama is next with five. The gap grows even wider between Oklahoma and the other national title contenders when you go back 13 seasons.
And the Sooners have been incredibly productive in their annual trips to the WCWS over that time span, winning seven of their eight total national championships and finishing as runners-up on two other occasions.
Samantha Ricketts and other former players still representing Patty Gasso's program at Women's College World Series
Sadly, though -- to the regret of the Sooner Nation but hardly to the eight teams left standing in this year's quest for the national championship -- Oklahoma is nowhere to be found at Devon Park in Oklahoma City for the grand finale of the 2026 college softball season. The Sooners' usual trip up the road to OKC was derailed this season in a stunning Super Regional series loss to a visiting Mississippi State, a team that had made it as far as a Super Regional just one other time in its history and is making its first trip to the Women's College World Series.
Although Oklahoma is not a WCWS participant this season, there will still be multiple Sooner softball connections on the field and in the dugout in Oklahoma City.
Mississippi State head coach Samantha Ricketts was a two-time Second-Team All-American first baseman in four years playing for Patty Gasso at Oklahoma in 2006-09. She also served on Gasso's staff for two seasons as a graduate assistant. She has been the head coach at Mississippi State since 2020. The Bulldogs will face Texas Tech in the opening game of the 2026 WCWS on Thursday.
Jordy Bahl Frahm, a dual player for Nebraska, is this season's USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year and NFCA National Player of the Year. She began her career at Oklahoma, where she earned All-America First-Team honors her freshman and sophomore seasons as a pitcher and was part of two national championship Oklahoma teams in 2022 and 2023.
Hannah Coor joined her former OU teammate Frahm at Nebraska for her senior season in 2026. The former Sooner is the Cornhuskers' starting center fielder, starting 57 games this season. She is an All-Big Ten Second-Team selection and enters the WCWS with a .331 batting average with six home runs and 32 runs batted in. Coor played at OU in 2021-25.
Nebraska will face Arkansas in the late game on Thursday. Arkansas head coach Courtney Deifel was a graduate assistant under Patty Gasso at Oklahoma in 2008-09. And Arkansas assistant head coach DJ Gasso is Patty's son and the brother of Oklahoma associate head coach and hitting coach JT Gasso.
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