We are a little less than half way through the NCAA softball regular season and I want to share some thoughts on one of the titans of college softball: Oklahoma Sooners. Oklahoma is currently sitting on a 24-2 record and is ranked #4 in the ESPN USA Softball Poll.
At this point in the season I see some good things, and I see some not so good coming out of Norman, OK.
First, the good things. We know that Oklahoma has a totally revamped pitching staff this year, only retaining 2 pitchers out of 8 from last season, and two of their pitchers so far this year have been true stand outs. The staff has been led by returning sophomore pitcher Alyssa Parker, she has received the lion’s share of the innings so far this season and has put up a 11-1 record, 1.63 ERA and 38 strike outs in 51 innings. Sophomore Miali Guiachino, transfer from Ole Miss, also a stand out, I have her graded as Oklahoma’s best pitcher statistically with a 7-0 record, 2.24 ERA and 44 strike outs in 34 innings.
But there have been some pitchers falling well short of expectations as well. Returning senior pitcher Kierston Deal has had a disastrous 10 innings so far this season putting up an 11.16 ERA and allowing a .404 average to opposing batters. Freshman Berkley Zache has also struggled to adjust to the college game so far. She has only received 6.2 innings and has a 3.15 ERA while allowing a .370 average to opposing batters. She is only a freshman and has plenty of time to adjust, but with her elite and highly decorated background I think a lot was expected from her early, but we have not see it from her quite yet
Back to the good things, the Sooners offense has put up record setting power numbers. Last week the Sooners became the fastest team to reach 100 home runs in a season. The Sooners accomplished the feat in just 25 games, beating the mark put up by (checks notes) oh right the Oklahoma Sooners back in 2021.
The Sooner offense has been led by freshmen catcher Kendall Wells, who has 19 home runs in 26 games. The most ever in a single season is 37 by Laura Espinoza in 1995, and Kendall Wells is on pace to beat that.
But, as excited as I want to be about the Sooners power, their strength of schedule so far is pretty weak. Only 5 games out of 26 against ranked opponents, none of which are ranked in the top 10, and the vast majority of their games where they have put up monster numbers have been against opponents that are not going to be around for the playoffs.
One final item to finish off this report, Oklahoma’s record is currently 24-2, that’s good. But one of the losses was to unranked Long Beach State 4-6 back in February which is not so good. It’s hard to imagine this happening to any of the dominant Sooner teams from recent memory, and I would rather have a tooth pulled out than be in the room listening to Coach Gasso address the team after the game.
The expectations are obviously sky high for a team with Oklahoma’s pedigree, and when evaluated against those expectations it’s been a mixed bag so far for the Sooners this season. But, there is lots of season left and plenty of chances to improve, we will have to stay tuned and see how Oklahoma fares during conference play, which starts this week.
