No. 1 Oklahoma softball places seven players in 2024 Top 100
By Chip Rouse
The college softball dynasty known as the Oklahoma Sooners is ranked No. 1 to start the 2024 season by both USA Softball and D1Softball. It stands to reason then that the Sooners would have some of the best players in the country on their roster.
D1Softball has come out with its preseason list of the top 100 softball players in the country for the 2024 season. Seven Sooners made the list, including two in the top eight, four in the top 15 and six in the top 26. That represents the highest concentration of top talent of any Division I team.
Seniors Jayda Coleman (3) and Tiare Jennings (8) are the heart and soul of the Oklahoma team and the top-ranked Sooners in the top 100. Coleman hit .408 last season with 17 home runs and 48 runs batted in. Jennings led No. 1-ranked Sooner offense a year ago with a team-best .415 batting average, 17 home runs and 66 RBI.
Fifth-year senior Kinzie Hansen, who many consider the best catcher in college softball, is No. 11 in the ranking and utility Alyssa Brito, who's in her third season at OU after transferring after her freshman season at Oregon, is at No. 15. Hansen batted .409, hit 13 home runs and 57 RBI and had clutch hit after clutch hit throughout the 2023 season. Brito was another .400-plus hitter for the Sooners last season with a .412 average 17 home runs and 60 RBI.
The three other Oklahoma players in the top-100 ranking were Oklahoma State transfer Kelly Maxwell (17) and Nicole May (26), both pitchers, and infielder Cydney Sanders (73), a former transfer from Arizona State.
Maxwell was an outstanding pitcher for four seasons at Oklahoma State for three seasons, but she has jumped across the Bedlam line and swapped her OSU orange for Sooner crimson. She was 16-7 last season with a 1.29 ERA and 229 strikeouts in 142 2/3 innings and, importantly, a .157 opponents' batting average. Maxwell is a valuable addition to an Oklahoma pitching staff that lost All-American freshman Jordy Bahl to the transfer portal and home-state Nebraska after last season. Bahl was No. 3 in the D1Softball Top 100.
Maxwell joins veteran senior pitcher Nicole May as lead starters on the OU staff this season. May was a perfect 18-0 last season with a 0.91 ERA and 130 strikeouts in 170 innings.
The Sooners are three-time defending national champions and riding a NCAA record 53-game winning streak to start the 2024 season, which for OU begins Feb. 8 at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge.
Sanders may not have performed as well as she did her freshman season at Arizona State, but she still had a solid season and was a key contributor to the Sooners NCAA record 61-1 season record a year ago. Sanders batted a modest .284 by OU standards but also added nine home runs and knocked in 31 RBI.