The Texas Longhorns finally got their long awaited revenge on Oklahoma softball, defeating the No. 2 Sooners 4-2 in the 2025 Women's College World Series on Saturday and placing the four-time defending champions one loss away from elimination.
It's a situation that is uncharacteristic but not unfamiliar territory for an Oklahoma team that has won six of the last eight national championships in softball and was national runner-up in one of the other seasons.
Oklahoma plays Oregon in WCWS elimination game
The margin of error is now zero for Patty Gasso's young Oklahoma squad. The Sooners have played in seven of the last eight WCWS championship series, but they won't even reach the national semifinals unless they are able to defeat 16-seed Oregon on Sunday night in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma roughed up Texas ace Kavan Teagan in the regular season against the Longhorns, scoring 14 runs on 12 hits in 4.1 innings over two games with just four combined strikeouts. It was a much different Teagan on the mound on Saturday in the WCWS.
The sophomore Texas starter allowed just two runs, both in the second inning, on seven hits and fanned eight OU hitters, including three in the final frame with two Sooners aboard.
Texas was finally able to get the monkey off its back and win its first game in the WCWS against Oklahoma in five previous tries and also avenge a two-game sweep in last season's national championship series. Prior to Saturday, the Longhorns had lost 22 of the last 25 meetings versus the Sooners and hadn't won a game in the state of Oklahoma since 2014.
For the second straight game, OU starter Sam Landry wasn't as sharp as she has been throughout the season. The senior right-hander did go the distance, giving up four runs on eight hits with just two strikeouts.
Texas jumped out in front 2-0 in the first inning on a couple of singles, two stolen bases and a throwing error by Sooner second baseman Ailana Agbayani, but Oklahoma responded with a pair of runs in the top of the second to tie the game at 2-2.
That's the way things remained until the fifth inning when Texas' Kayden Henry launched a solo home run to right field.
The Longhorns added an insurance run an inning later on a solo bomb by Notre Dame transfer Joley Mitchell to go up 4-2, and this time there was no miracle comeback in the seventh like there was on Thursday in the Sooners' come-from-behind, walk-off win.
Although Oklahoma managed to make a game of it through the first four innings, you had the feeling from the start Texas was in it to win in and wasn't intimidated by its recent history against the Sooners. The Longhorns were able to limit and shutter OU's scoring opportunities, something they have not been able to do during the long losing string.
Despite the outstanding pitching performance by Teagan, the Sooners did have scoring opportunities that coulda, woulda, but in the end did not change the outcome of the game. Oklahoma left nine runners on base, and you cannot squander those opportunities against a good team like Texas.
So Gasso's young crew is now faced with an uphill climb in order to remain alive, and that journey begins Sunday evening at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2 against 16-seed Oregon, coached by Oklahoma alum and longtime Sooner softball assistant Melyssa Lombardi. The Ducks (54-9) lost their opening WCWS game to UCLA, but defeated Ole Miss 6-5 in 10 innings in an elimination game to survive and advance.
The last time Oklahoma failed to make it to a national semifinal game in the WCWS was in 2014, when, ironically, the Sooners were eliminated by the Oregon Ducks by a 4-2 score.
How OU is able to bounce back against Oregon after the emotional loss to arch-rival Texas a little more than 24 hours before will be a strong indicator of what this Sooner team is made of and how far it's capable of going in this year's national championship tournament.
The Sooners have faced elimination six times in the WCWS since their championship run began in earnest in the 2016 season. They made it to the championship series in seven of the eight seasons and took home the championship trophy six times.
With 14 newcomers this season, this Oklahoma team is younger and not as experienced on college softball's biggest stage as the Sooner teams of the past. But the tradition and championship mindset has not changed. And, oh yeah, OU is still loaded with some of best talent in the sport and led by a Hall of Fame coach.
They've overcome similar adversity before in the Women's College World Series. There's nothing to say that the Sooners can't do it again. As they say, it's not over till it's over.
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