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Report: Four Sooners to Enter Transfer Portal

A quartet of players who played a backup role during Oklahoma's 2021 national championship run will transfer, including two pitchers.
John E. Hoover|
Report: Four Sooners to Enter Transfer Portal
Report: Four Sooners to Enter Transfer Portal

Four Oklahoma softball players have entered the transfer portal, according to a report from 247 Sports website OU Insider.

Pitchers Brooke Vestal and Olivia Rains and position players Kinsey Koeltzow and Paige Knight will seek other opportunities, according to OU Insider’s Joey Helmer.

While neither of the foursome had a big role in the Sooners’ 2021 title run, all four were projected to do big things in their career at OU.

Rains, a sophomore from Pryor, OK, had the biggest impact this season with 17 appearances in the circle. She posted a 1.17 earned run average with 20 strikeouts in 18 innings.

Vestal, a third-year sophomore from New Braunfels, TX, pitched only 7 1/3 innings in seven appearances this season and didn’t allow a run.

Koeltzow, a junior from Tuttle, was used mainly as a pinch-runner this season. She made 15 plate appearances and batted .385 while scoring 11 runs in her 29 games.

Knight, a freshman from Owasso, played in eight games and had three hits in five at-bats.

OU returns almost everyone from one of the greatest assemblages of softball talent in the history of the college game. The Sooners went 56-4 to win their fifth national championship this season, leading the nation in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage and setting national records for home runs, home runs per game, total runs scored and runs per game.

The Sooners also have signed seven players who are all ranked in the top 22 nationally in the 2021 recruiting class, according to Extra Inning Softball, including No. 1 overall prospect Jordyn Bahl, a pitcher from Nebraska, No. 3 overall prospect Sophia Nugent, an infielder/catcher from California, and No. 5 overall prospect Quincee Lilio, a utility player from California.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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