How Patty Gasso Brought Karlie Keeney Back to Oklahoma as Interim Pitching Coach

Oklahoma’s first game week of the 2026 season has been hectic.

Before the No. 3 Sooners opened their campaign at Arizona State on Thursday, the program announced that associate head coach and pitching coach Jennifer Rocha is taking a leave of absence for an “undetermined amount of time” due to a “health issue.”

And while everyone in the program rushed to support Rocha, Patty Gasso had to make a quick decision on who would lead her pitching staff in Rocha’s absence.

Gasso and her trusted assisstant made the quick decision to turn to former pitcher Karlie Keeney — but getting her to Norman was far from straightforward.

“The way this worked was we knew that Coach Rocha, just to be straight up, she won’t be with us — I asked her who she thought would be the right person and we all agreed Karlie Keeney,” Gasso told OU radio voice Chris Plank during the pregame show for Thursday’s contest with Arizona State. “Karlie Keeney was at Kinzie Hansen’s wedding (on Saturday) and I didn’t know that, but I thought it might happen and I think I saw it in a picture … I think I saw her face so I called Tiare (Jennings) and I said, ‘Is Karlie Keeney near you?’ And she said yes and I said … ‘Tell her to drive to Norman. Like right now. As soon as you’re leaving in the morning, have her follow you.’ And she did — actually she got a ride with Tiare because her car was left somewhere else.”

Once Keeney got to Norman, Gasso filled her in on the situation.

“I had to look at her in the eye and kind of really explain what we’re going through and there was just a burst of tears,” Gasso said. “Yet she had a feeling, her mother had a feeling that we needed her, which was just like a prophet. Like, how would you know that? Why would you think that? You don’t know nothing about what’s going on. And just looking at her and her feeling what we were going through, she said yes immediately.

“I mean in two days we had her signing her life away and she drove home from Norman to get on a flight to come out to Arizona and she has to go back home … to Kentucky and then driving to Norman.”

Gasso said Keeney would have a staff around her to assist, but the former Liberty and OU pitcher called the pitches for Audrey Lowry and Miali Guachino in the Sooners’ 2-1 victory on Thursday.

Keeney arrived at Liberty as a freshman in 2020, and she pitched for the Flames for four years.

She transferred to Norman in 2024 to help the Sooners notch their fourth straight national title.

Keeney made 30 appearances at OU, posting a 6-1 record and she recorded one save with a 1.82 ERA. She notched a win over Florida State in the Norman Super Regional and made two appearances at the 2024 WCWS.

Oklahoma Sooners, Karlie Keene — Karlie Keeney threw for Oklahoma in Game 2 of the 2024 Norman Super Regional against Florida State. | BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

Last year, Keeney served on Oklahoma’s staff as the program’s student assistant pitching coach.

Lowry and Guachino made Keeney’s first contest at pitching coach a memorable one.

Gasso and Keeney went with Lowry from the start, and she allowed just one home run on one hit in 5 2/3 innings. She issued no walks and hit just one of the 19 batters she faced while recording one strikeout.

Guachino, a sophomore transfer from Ole Miss, entered the game with two outs in the sixth inning and quickly posted the first strikeout of her OU career.

She then returned to close out the victory in the seventh.

The Sooners have three more games this weekend.

OU will meet No. 17 Arizona in a three-game series in Tucson over the weekend, starting on Friday at 5 p.m.

Gasso is just happy Keeney agreed to step in for Rocha on incredibly short notice.

“She’s given up her life on a dime for Coach Rocha and this program,” Gasso said.