How Oklahoma Softball is Staying Grounded Ahead of Chase for Third Straight Title
NORMAN — Once again, Oklahoma softball is entering the year with a chance to do something that hasn’t been achieved in over 30 years.
Patty Gasso’s Sooners are back-to-back defending National Champions, and are looking to match UCLA’s run from 1988-1990, when the Bruins won three straight titles.
OU is no stranger to the spotlight.
This time last year, Oklahoma was looking to defend its crown while Jocelyn Alo was on the cusp of setting the new career home run record and the rest of the offense appeared as if it had the power to break the NCAA team home run record set by the Sooners in 2021.
Led by a core of experienced leaders, OU looked unfazed on the biggest stage in the sport, even defiant when the team did drop the occasional game.
Leading into the 2023 season, the key for Gasso to keep the group motivated is the same — take things one day at a time.
“We don’t talk about winning, three-peat,” Gasso said Monday during her preseason press conference. “Those are words that we’re not really talking about around here because it’s premature. It’s really about the process, the journey, it’s all of that. All the work we put in.
“… We’re just focusing on weekend per weekend. We’re just not going down that rabbit hole right now. It’s just a scary place to take them, to hear them talk about. So we’re just trying to keep it very day-to-day and very simple and not get overwhelmed with looking at rankings and things that don’t make absolutely any sense right now.”
A lineup refresh will help keep the team competing every day at practice.
Alo, Hope Trautwein, Jana Johns and Taylon Snow all graduated out of the program, and Gasso brought in four freshman as well as impact transfers Alex Storako, Haley Lee, Cydney Sanders and Alynah Torres.
The fight for place in the lineup every day helps keep the team grounded, as they’re just focused on doing what is necessary to see the field once games start on the West Coast later this week.
“It’s a new year. A new team,” OU’s captain shortstop Grace Lyons said. “You kind of have to refocus and kind of forget about what was behind. That’s kind of my mentality in life and I know Coach (Gasso) definitely translates that to our team and how she coaches because you can’t think about anything in the past.
“… We’ve got so many new players and new positions and I think our goal is to just go out, win games, do the best we can, hit the ball hard and see what happens.”
Off the field, the noise from outside distractions is as loud as ever.
The avenues opened by Name, Image and Likeness opportunities as well as the booming viewership numbers in college softball mean the media obligations and attention on the program have grown even over the last 18 months.
Balancing all those opportunities with the need to focus in practice and come game day can be difficult, but each player has developed her individual process to juggle it all.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that I have to put myself first,” outfielder Jayda Coleman said. “And you just have to find little ways to distance yourself. And for me personally, on off days my phone’s on Do Not Disturb. I’m only looking at my phone if I want to look at my phone.
“… But I think every person is different. So however they want to go about it and just disconnect from social media because I feel like social media nowadays just can be so crazy.”
Despite the workmanlike approach the team tries to bring every day, the standard is still sky high in Norman.
The faces in the field and in the batting lineup may have changed, but the goal is still to put a championship-caliber product on the field.
Leaning on the experience of wining it all the past two years can be a big boost, as the returning members of the team know exactly what it takes to end the year in a euphoric dogpile in Oklahoma City.
“Definitely having championships under our belt is an advantage because we’re confident,” Lyons said. “We know that we’re talented. But that’s not our ultimate goal to go win another (National Championship). I know in the back of our minds it is.
“But ultimately we want to be the best that we can be. The best team that maybe OU has ever had. And I think that’s kind of our main mentality going into the season.”
Gasso has never shied away from the talent she puts on the field, and neither has the team. Getting the talent to buy into focusing on each individual game and living weekend-to-weekend has been crucial to the program’s success, and Gasso thinks that will be the key again in 2023.
“They understand that they’re good. They know they’re good,” she said. “So I think they want to be more than good. I think they want to be great. Again, we don’t talk about winning like winning it all or things like that. It’s just more of when you put all them together, there’s power. You can feel it. It’s a very powerful feeling of confidence, athleticism.
“And I think they’re a team that wants to be known like that. Maybe make history. ... Again, we don’t talk about it for good reason. But they know. They know it. They know what’s in front and they just want to be known as the best. And that expectation is always there throughout practice.”
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