Listen to me. I am going to ask you to do something very, very difficult. I need you to focus because it is going to take all of your willpower. You will have to overcome every fiber of your being and every impulse in your brain to make this happen. But you must. For you see, you cannot root for the University of Oklahoma in the NCAA Women's College World Series. You cannot.
Last night, I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Oklahoma Sooners absolutely crush my beloved Texas Longhorns in the first of the best-of-three series. Oklahoma hit a record 6 home runs against Texas last night to win by a score of (and it truly hurts me to type this) 16-1.
It would be easy to root for them, of course. The current Oklahoma team is one of the best softball lineups, perhaps of all time. They go into tonight's game—brace yourself—with a whopping record of 58-3. Last year, they won the World Series. Their record? 56-4.
Oh. That's not enough for you to believe that they are ridiculously good? How about this. After each of their three losses this season, the Oklahoma team run-ruled their opponent in the very next game.
Oklahoma softball has been dominating for almost a decade now. They won the series in 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2021. In 2019, they were the runner's up. They are the Division I leaders in batting average and home runs. Facing the Oklahoma lineup is like facing the 1927 Yankees. Sure, maybe you can beat one great batter, but a whole lineup of them? It's borderline impossible.
Just watch this bomb of a homer by Jocelyn Alo from a few days ago:
Alo is one of the best hitters the NCAA has ever seen. She has the most career home runs in NCAA softball history (120). And the record she broke? That was held by former Oklahoma slugger Lauren Chamberlain, at 95. Alo's hit more than 30 home runs in three straight seasons. I have watched her play dozens of games this year. Alo is so consistently smart at the plate and so dominant when given something to hit that it is a tragedy she can't be drafted to a team for millions of dollars. Her swing is crisp, light, and fast. She's powerful. Last night, she hit two home runs.
And Alo is only one of the great hitters on this team. Tiare Jennings also hit two home runs last night (her fourth and fifth of the series). And she hits immediately after Alo.
I'm not rooting for Oklahoma to win. No way. Are they personable, exciting, and fun to watch? Yeah! But I have a singular aim here, and you should too. I want Oklahoma to lose tonight.
I know what you are thinking, Kelsey, you just don't want them to win the world series because you went to the University of Texas—hook'em horns—and Oklahoma is your rival! First off, yes. That's correct. Seeing Oklahoma sweep the unranked Longhorns would bring me physical pain. But! Hear me out. The reason I'm asking you to join me in rooting against Oklahoma tonight is that, if they lose, we will get to watch this Oklahoma team play again on Friday. This kind of team, with this kind of lineup, is rare. It's special. And there are just two games left. Only one if Oklahoma wins tonight.
You can root for whoever you want on Friday, if the series gets that far. But for tonight, we must all join together to root against the vile Sooners so that we might have one more night of watching them bat before the season ends.
It's not impossible! Despite the fact that Texas got absolutely crushed last night, they did beat Oklahoma once during the regular season, one of the three times the Sooners lost. So it's not impossible. Unranked Texas also already has beaten two ranked teams in the series.
It is good for the sport to have a team this dominate. It generates headlines. It brings in new viewers. The University of Oklahoma is building a new $27 million softball stadium that will seat 3,000 fans. It's also better if the series goes to three games and more people get to see this team. It's better for the sport, it's better for the players, and it is much, much better for me personally.
Game two will be played tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET. If Oklahoma wins, they will be back-to-back champions, the first team to do so since themselves in 2016 and 2017. After the season they've had, they deserve it. But what if they won on Friday. What if we got to watch this lineup smash softballs for an extra night? What if we saw how good they could be when threatened? That's what I'm rooting for tonight. Please join me.
