An Oklahoma win over Texas is always cause for celebration, and made even sweeter when it comes in front of a loud, supportive and highly engaged full house at home.
All of that was in place in the series opener of a huge SEC series pitting Red River rivals Oklahoma and Texas on Friday night. A record crowd of 4,587 packed into Love's Field, a single-game record attendance at the Sooners' new two-year-old home field, as No. 4 Oklahoma built a six-run lead early and held on at the end for a dramatic 7-6 win.
Oklahoma beats Longhorns in front of record crowd
The Sooners' series opening win was the 34th in the last 37 games against their chief rival, and to make it even more special, it moved Oklahoma past both Texas and Texas A&M, a 7-5 loser to Arkansas on Friday night, into first place in the SEC standings with a 14-5 conference record.
Oklahoma drew first blood on Friday, pushing across a run after loading the bases in the second inning off of Texas ace Teagan Kavan. The Sooners followed that with a five-run explosion in the third, keyed by a grand slam home run by junior BYU transfer Ailana Agbayani, her second long ball of the year and just the seventh of her career.
Lana back to talkin' launch angle 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/mAA05dACtp
— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) April 25, 2025
You're not going to hold an offense as potent as Texas is top to bottom, though, for a full game. The Longhorns, ranked No. 3 in the country and tied with OU for second place in the SEC coming into this series, scored two runs back in the third on a home run by Mia Scott, and then put up a three-spot an inning later to pull within one, 6-5.
The Sooners added what proved to be the winning run in the bottom of the fifth as Agbayani struck again with a double driving in Nelly McEnroe-Marinas, who had doubled to lead off the inning.
Texas pulled within one with another run in the top of the seventh, but OU's Sam Landry closed the door, leaving two Longhorns on base, to preserve the victory and record her 16th win and 13th complete game of the season.
After the game, head coach Patty Gasso couldn't say enough good things about how important the Oklahoma home crowd was in factoring into the win.
"I have to start with a wonderful, heartfelt shout out to our fans," Gasso said in the opening remarks of her postgame press conference. "That was amazing. They were loud. They were into it.
"We were very proud that they were there, that they were standing tall throughout the entire game. Through all the twists and turns there were, they never let go."
About the performance of the team on the field, the Sooner head coach had this to say: "These guys knew what's at stake this weekend. We don't talk about it much, but they know that they are inching closer to something that could be unbelievable as a Sooner team that is relatively knew."
There are 13 newcomers to Oklahoma's 2025 roster.
This series is long from over, however, and especially with the stakes as high as they are for both teams. The second game in the series, originally scheduled for an 11 a.m. CT start on Saturday, was moved to 6:30 p.m. Saturday night. The Saturday night game will be on SEC Network+. The series finale on Sunday will be at 1 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.
Read more about OU softball