In the immortal words of English poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer, "All good things must come to an end." The 2025 Oklahoma softball season reached its climatic end on Monday evening in a Women's College World Series semifinal loss to first-time party crasher Texas Tech.
With formidable NiJaree Canady in the circle, Texas Tech ended the Sooners' four-year run at the top of the college softball world with a 3-2 walk-off win, cutting short Oklahoma's extraordinary bid for a fifth consecutive national championship.
The Sooners had won a record nine straight elimination games over their past eight WCWS appearances, but again, nothing lasts forever, and in this classic showdown between the best pitcher in college softball and one of the best offensive teams, Texas Tech showed on Monday night that while it might be a newcomer to the World Series stage, the Red Raiders are in it to win it.
OU's season comes to bittersweet end, but this group of Sooners is not done
For the first time in five years, Oklahoma will not be playing in the WCWS championship series with a chance this time around to become a nine-time national champion. The 2025 national title will be decided in a best-of-three championship series between former Big 12 rivals Texas and Texas Tech beginning on Wednesday.
While the disappointment and sadness was visibly noticeable among OU players, their families and throughout Sooner Nation, there is every reason to believe that this is not the end of the Oklahoma softball dynasty, but rather the beginning of a whole new chapter of what this same group of Sooners is capable of achieving. The future of Sooner softball is alive and well and as bright and promising as ever.
"It's been a joyous ride," head coach Patty Gasso said postgame after the loss to Texas Tech. "I just shared with them in the locker room how much fun I had with them coaching them, watching them grow, watching them be hungry and watching them never quit. It was emotional, amazing, one of my favorite years of all-time, I must say.
"As much as I need a break, I'm really ready to have them back and start over again because I think we learned so much and we're going to be that much better, lessons learned along the way."
Disappointed fans need to keep in mind that just one year ago, OU graduated the most decorated and accomplished class of college softball players in the history of the game, and this year welcomed 14 newcomers (nine freshmen and five transfers) to the roster.
This marked the first time since the 2019 season that the Sooners won't hoist the championship trophy and the first time since 2018 that OU has been eliminated in the WCWS before the championship series.
Texas Tech scored two runs in the second inning to take a quick 2-0 lead, and that's the way things stood until the eventful seventh inning with Canady holding Oklahoma to just three innocent singles through the first six frames. She recorded eight strikeouts in the game and walked just one batter.
Down to their final out and a two-strike count, the Sooners' No. 9 hitter Abigale Dayton got hold of one of Canady's pitches and sent it over the right-center fence for a two-run home run to tie the game.
OU's attempt to pull off another miraculous WCWS finish was quickly quashed, however, when the Red Raiders brought home the winning run in the bottom half of the seventh inning on a sacrifice fly by Lauren Allred that drove in Mihyia Davis from third for the winning run. Both are former Louisiana teammates of Oklahoma pitcher Sam Landry.
Despite the pressure of having to go against her former head coach for three seasons at Louisiana, Gerry Glasco, and several of her former teammates who transferred to follow Glasco to Texas Tech, OU's Landry had an equally effective performance, allowing just six hits scattered among six different hitters and striking out six Red Raiders.
Sydney Barker, one of three freshmen in the OU starting lineup against Texas Tech, had three of the Sooners' five hits against the All-American Canady.
Like Texas a couple of days before, Canady was able to gain some redemption against Oklahoma, having lost her two previous starts to the Sooners while pitching for Stanford in the 2023 Women's College World Series.
Playing off the popular catchphrase used by Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in the "Terminator" film franchise, the rallying cry for the Oklahoma softball program looking ahead to 2026 and beyond could appropriately declare: "We'll be back!"
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