Oklahoma claimed its second consecutive regular-season SEC softball championship this season. The No. 3-seeded Sooners won all 10 of their 2026 SEC series, and they will have to get past another SEC team, one they did not face in the regular season, to advance to the Women's College World Series for the 10th straight season.
OU (51-9) will host Mississippi State, one of nine SEC schools to advance to the Super Regional round of the NCAA Softball Tournament, for a best of three series beginning Friday at Love's Field, where the Sooners are 25-1 this season and 13-0 in NCAA postseason games since the country's largest on-campus softball venue opened in 2024.
Although Oklahoma has only been a member of the SEC for two full seasons, when the Sooners face Mississippi State this weekend, it will be the fifth time in the last 13 seasons OU has been matched up against an SEC opponent in the Super Regional round. The Sooners swept two games against Alabama in the Norman Super Regional a year ago.
Oklahoma is 11-3 against SEC teams in the Super Regionals over the last 13 seasons, including each of the last six games. The only time during that span that OU lost a Super Regional to an SEC opponent was in 2015, when the Sooners won Game 1 to Alabama but lost the next two games, 3-0 and 13-2 . That was also the last time Oklahoma failed to make the Women's College World Series.
The only other time an Oklahoma team lost a game in the Super Regionals to an SEC team was in the 2014 season. The Sooners won the opening game vs. Tennessee at home 8-1, lost the second game 4-0, but rebounded to take the rubber game in the series 8-2 to advance to the Women's College World Series.
Oklahoma is 11-0 all-time in softball vs. Mississippi State
The Sooners are 11-0 all-time against Mississippi State, including 3-0 in Norman. This will be the first time the two teams have met in a Super Regional. The Lady Bulldogs are 41-18 overall this season and ranked No. 20 in the most recent ESPN/USA Softball Top 25, but they are just 9-15 in SEC conference play.
Mississippi State won just two conference series in the 2026 regular season, against LSU and South Carolina. Both the Friday and Saturday games of the OU-Mississippi State Super Regional will be 12 noon CT starts. Friday's game will be televised on ESPN2. The game on Saturday will be televised on ESPN.
If Oklahoma is able to take care of business against Mississippi State, the Sooners are likely to go head to head with a couple more SEC opponents with as many as five or six SEC teams making it to the Women's College World Series. OU's opening round WCWS opponent would be either Florida or Texas Tech, the team that eliminated the Sooners last season, preventing a potential NCAA record national championship five-peat.
Other Sooner softball news of note
There is a coaching tree connection in the Oklahoma-Mississippi State Super Regional. Mississippi State head coach Samantha Ricketts played at Oklahoma from 2006 to 2009 and was a graduate assistant under OU head coach Patty Gasso for two years.
During her four years at Oklahoma, Ricketts was a four-time All-Big 12 first-team selection and a two-time All-American. Her younger sister, Keilani Ricketts, also played at Oklahoma (2010-2013) and twice was named USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year (2012, 2013). Ricketts has been the head coach at Mississippi State since 2020.
Also this week, Oklahoma super freshmen Kai Minor and Kendall Wells have been named top-three finalists for the NFCA Freshman of the Year award in NCAA Division I softball. Minor leads the SEC and all Division I softball with a batting average of .446 in 57 games. Wells set the SEC record and Oklahoma program record for home runs in a single season. She currently sits at 37 home runs, second most by a player this or any season in the collegiate ranks.
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