Where will Sooners, Cowgirls go?
The Big 12 softball champion Oklahoma Sooners and runner-up Oklahoma State Cowgirls found out where they were headed for the NCAA regionals late Sunday night.
Despite a sweep of the Big 12 titles, the Oklahoma softball team came up just short of a topeight seed in the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
Instead, the 10thseeded Sooners, a teamon a quest to defend its 2016 national championship, will host a regional and then likely head to No. 7-seeded Auburn for a potential rematch of last year’s epic title game. Oklahoma will open with North Dakota State on Thursday. Arkansas and Tulsa are also in the Norman Regional.
“We’re excited no matter what, where you put us, home or away,” OU coach Patty Gasso said on the ESPN broadcast of the selection show. “It doesn’t really matter to us. But I’m not looking that far ahead.
“I respect the teams in our regional. That’s all we’re going to be focusing on because that is a tough regional. We’re not going to look ahead. We’re going to focus on what’s in front of us first, and we’ll go from there.”
The last time Oklahoma didn’t host a Super Regional was 2015, when the No. 11-seed Sooners lost to Alabama in three games at the Tuscaloosa Super Regional.
Though the Sooners will have to hit the road before they can make it back to the College World Series, the task isn’t as daunting with OU’s perfect 16-0 record in true road games. The Sooners are 14-7 at neutral sites.
“We take a different path than most teams,” Gasso said. “Some of us know how we have to go about it. We have to play a tough schedule early. We kind of weren’t. I can’t tell you how proud I am of them erasing their mistakes and making it to No. 10.”
OU entered the Big 12 Championship ranked seventh in the national polls, but 11th in the RPI. With the No. 10 seed, it appears the second league title didn’t boost the Sooners’ RPI much. OU was likely hurt by its early season losses to Cal Poly, Tennessee and Notre Dame, but the Sooners won 27 of their last 28 games.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma State, the Big 12 Championship runner-up, will begin the tournament against Florida International in top-seeded Florida’s regional.