OU Softball: Four Oklahoma Players Named to Team USA for World Games

While Patty Gasso’s college team is tackling Texas and chasing an SEC championship, her international team is taking shape — a shape that looks a little like the Sooner State.

Team USA’s official roster for the upcoming World Games in China includes four former Oklahoma Sooners.

Outfielder Jayda Coleman, infielder Tiare Jennings and pitcher Kelly Maxwell all made Gasso’s first international 15-woman roster, which was announced earlier this week. Former OU catcher Kinzie Hansen is one of three alternates.

The World Games unfold August 13-17 in Chengdu, China, and its the fourth time softball has been included in the event. Team USA beat Japan for the gold in 2022.

For Gasso, who owns eight college national championships, it’s her first time constructing a roster for international play.

On Tuesday, Gasso joked that she may not have realized the compacted schedules coming together — a team camp in the middle of prep for Mississippi State and a roster announcement during OU-Texas week.

“Yeah, that was not a smart idea by me to decide to have a camp in the middle of our week before Mississippi State,” Gasso said, “so we were doing a morning session with USA, OU softball, evening session with USA, come back the next day, same.

“So we did three days in a row of three-a-days, and then we did a Friday morning with USA Softball, and then our game was an earlier start so I spent a lot of time here. But it was great. It was great and I really got to see some players I haven’t seen in awhile and watch them.”

The 2025 USWNT World Games roster includes 13 returners from the 2024 season, including 12 athletes from the 2024 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) World Cup, where the U.S. earned silver.

Skylar Wallace will make her WNT debut after spending the 2024 season with the U.S. Women’s Elite Team, while Coleman joins the roster following her participation in the 2019 U-19 Women’s World Cup. Also highlighting the squad are four members from the 2020 U.S. Olympic Softball Team that helped the Eagles earn silver at the Tokyo Olympic Games: Ally Carda, Rachel Garcia, Dejah Mulipola and Bubba Nickles.

Six of the 15 return to the World Games stage after competing in the 2022 edition.

Hansen, Lexi Kilfoyl and Aubrey Leach will serve as alternates for the roster.

“We’ve got a lot of metrics and numbers on them,” Gasso said, “and I think there’s a — it’s a World Game, so the top eight teams in the world will be in China in August and we had to make that decision for visa purposes and so forth. … My days off are no more. Mondays are not days off, it’s USA Softball time.”

As members of the 2021 freshman class, Coleman and Jennings were the backbone of Oklahoma’s unprecedented four straight national championships.

Coleman, from The Colony, TX, was the Gatorade National High School Player of the Year when she arrived at OU, then became a four-time first-team All-American centerfielder. Specializing in going over the wall to rob home runs or diving catches to rob base hits, Coleman was the spark-plug for an OU team that led the nation in numerous offensive categories and twice led the nation in defensive fielding percentage. Coleman was a career .415 hitter with 279 hits, 44 doubles, five triples, 47 home runs, 185 RBIs and 179 walks.

Jennings, from San Pedro, CA, was the national Freshman of the Year in 2021 and also became a four-time first-team All-American. batted .412 in her OU career with 314 hits, 64 doubles, 98 home runs and 128 walks. She started three years at second base and then replaced Grace Lyons at shortstop during her senior year.

Hansen, from Norco, CA, was a freshman in 2020 when the softball season was canceled after just 24 games. During her first two full seasons in 2021 and 2022, she split time with senior captain Lynnsie Elam, batting .438 with 24 home runs and 66 RBIs as a redshirt freshman. Hansen became the everyday catcher in 2023 and hit .409 with 13 homers and 57 RBIs, and in 2024 she hit .400 with 11 homers and 41 RBIs. She was a first-team All-American in 2023 and second-team in 2021 and 2024.

Maxwell, from Houston, began her career at Oklahoma State, where she was a first-team All-American in 2022 and a second-team All-American in 2023. In 2024, she transferred to Oklahoma and became the key component to OU’s run to a fourth straight national title, landing Most Outstanding Player honors at the 2024 Women’s College World Series. The left hander went 23-2 as a senior with a 1.94 earned run average with 164 strikeouts and 64 walks in 155 1/3 innings.

Featuring 15 former student-athletes from eight universities, the 2025 World Games roster highlights representation from four athletic conferences: SEC (seven athletes), Big Ten (five athletes), Big 12 (two athletes), and ACC (one athlete). UCLA has the most with five athletes, followed by Oklahoma with three and Florida with two. Arizona, Florida State, LSU, Texas and Utah are also represented with one each.

“There’s so many analytics you can get on these players,” Gasso said. “I just remember in the past, some players wouldn’t make the team and they would wonder why and they would ask me and I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ But it made me think, ‘Now, I do know.’

“I can show you five shortstop profiles and yours as a shortstop and say, ‘This is where they have you beat, this is where they have you beat on this, your arm strength or what have you.’ Now you can walk away and say, I know what I have to do to get better versus me saying, ‘I don’t know.’

“So I really want to take a very professional approach toward treating these athletes right, trying to raise money to help these athletes get paid. But we are work our tail off. They’re going to work probably more than they ever (have) because that’s the success story in any program is absolutely, hardcore work. That’s the goal here.”