Oklahoma softball: Sooners home for weekend tournament at all-new Love's Field
By Chip Rouse
After three weekend tournaments away from home and a season-opening 14-0 record, the top-ranked Oklahoma softball team is back in Norman to host its own tournament and open its brand-new ballpark, Love's Field.
The Sooners will open their new $48 million stadium hosting three teams in a five-game weekend tournament that will run from Friday through Sunday. OU will open up its new softball venue on Friday afternoon against Miami of Ohio, riding an NCAA record 67-game winning streak. That will be the first of 11 consecutive home games, including the Big 12 season opener against Iowa State.
The Sooners will play a pair of games on Friday. Following the game with the Red Hawks of Miami of Ohio, OU will host Liberty. Two more games are scheduled on Saturday, After opening against Miami of Ohio, the Sooners will play a doubleheader on Saturday. Game 1 will be against Louisiana, and Oklahoma will take on Liberty again in the second game. A single game is scheduled for Sunday, The Sooners will play Louisiana in the tournament finale.
For the past 26 years, Oklahoma has played softball games at Marita Hynes Field, a facility that held just under 1,400 fans and hosted seven national champion Sooner teams and 14 Big 12 champions. Seventeen NCAA regionals and nine super regionals were also hosted there. The Sooners were 548-62 playing at Marita Hynes Field.
The new ballpark is located on the northwest corner of Jenkins Avenue and Imhoff road and is about a half-mile south of Marita Hynes field. Love's Field more than doubles the seating capacity of the former stadium, going from 1,738 to 4,200. The new complex is nearly triple the size of the former one, from 15,000 square feet to 44,000 square feet. The new complex includes a 10,669 square-foot training facility.
"We have something to brag about as we go into the SEC," head coach Patty Gasso said before the Rotary Club of Oklahoma City in January. "It's going to be the biggest stadium in the country."
One of the unique features of Love's Field is a $1.4 million scoreboard designed in the shape of the state of Oklahoma. A band of LED lights are wrapped around the outside edges of the scoreboard. At night when the scoreboard is not in use, the lights will Oklahoma state outline will be illuminated by the lights.
Oklahoma led all of NCAA Division I last season almost every major statistical category. Through 14 games, the 2024 Sooners ranks in the top-three nationally in several categories: second in shutouts (9) and fielding percentage (.989) and is third in earned run average (0.73). OU has hit 22 home runs and is averaging 7.86 runs per game, both 10th-best in the county, and its .373 team batting average ranks 13th.