The 2018 softball season was magical for Oklahoma. The Sooners won their seventh consecutive Big 12 championship after posting a perfect 18-0 mark in conference. They dominated the conference leading the way in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, runs, hits, doubles, home runs, walks, stolen bases, ERA, opponent batting average, strikeouts per seven inning and fielding percentage in conference games.
On Sunday evening they were announced as the fourth overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and had the road paved for them to reach the Women’s College World Series without ever leaving the state of Oklahoma. The back-to-back defending national champions enter the tournament with everything literally going their way but there’s one member of the field in the Norman Regional that may just give them a chip on their crimson and cream shoulders.
The #RoadToTheWCWS runs through Norman. #Sooners receive the No. 4 national seed and will host Missouri, Tulsa and Boston University in this weekend's NCAA Norman Regional. #ChampionshipMindset pic.twitter.com/QaqRUx9XYf
— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) May 14, 2018
A season that ended so good hit a major bump early on. Oklahoma opened up as the #1 team in the nation at the GCU Kickoff Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona. After sweeping through the competition they were off to the Troy Cox Classic in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
After their two Friday games were cancelled due to weather, the Sooners finally took the field against Boston University on Saturday, and the unthinkable happened. A 3-2 Oklahoma lead vanished in the top of the fifth when two errors allowed the Terriers to tie it up. A sacrifice fly to center field came next, scoring Alexa Ponce, and ultimately producing a 4-3 monumental upset.
Oklahoma lost the number one ranking and were never able to secure it back. They bounced around in the top five for the remainder of the season, ultimately finishing at number three, but that’s not good enough.
Finishing number one has always been the goal and there’s only one way to do that…win the Women’s College World Series. The first team standing in the way of Oklahoma accomplishing that will be Boston University. When the two meet up at 6:00 on Friday night you can bet on offering up a bit of revenge to be an extra motive for the Sooners.