Oklahoma head coach Patty Gasso joked that she didn’t want to have to think about Alabama after winning Bedlam on Wednesday.
Despite a lopsided final score, it was an emotional, back-and-forth battle between two ranked rivals. The game was also played in front of a record crowd at Devon Park, home of the Women’s College World Series.
It wasn’t a unique environment for the program, but it was for the majority of the roster.
“I was really excited to bring a team to this venue,” Gasso said after the 11-3 win. “About 3/4ths of them haven’t been in this situation … I heard we broke a record, which is awesome. They haven’t been introduced to that until tonight.”
The Sooners returned eight players from last year’s national championship team and now has 14 newcomers.
Oklahoma already owns one of the biggest home field advantages in the country in Love’s Field. The Sooners’ new home is the largest on-campus softball facility in the country.
Still, Love’s Field has of 4,200 fans. On Wednesday the Sooners played in front of an NCAA regular season record 9,259 fans — and they weren’t all Sooners.
Through the first two and a half innings the Sooners trailed 3-0 and most of the cheering was coming from the Oklahoma State fans.
A two-run home run by Kasidi Pickering changed the momentum in the bottom of the third and the Sooners went on to reel off 11 straight runs over the next three innings to win by run rule.
“There were a lot of people here, it was really loud,” starting pitcher Sam Landry said. “The loudness is something that we deal with at Love’s as well, but I think today I kind of let it get to me a little bit too much at the beginning of the game and I was trying to fight the nerves and anxiety I had versus playing with it.”
Now Oklahoma has two days off before facing No. 23 Alabama at another daunting venue.
Rhoads Stadium had held the distinction as the biggest on-campus softball facility in the country before Love’s Field was completed in 2024. Its biggest crowd ever came in 2017 with 4,015 in attendance.
The two schools have met 18 times in their history, but most of those meetings came at the WCWS.
The only time the Sooners went to Tuscaloosa was the 2015 Alabama Super Regional. They won the first game, but the Crimson Tide won the next two to advance to Oklahoma City.
Gasso said Wednesday’s emotional win might be exactly what the team needs to start a tough closing stretch to the season.
“I’m so fired up about this, because I think it’s what we needed,” she said. “This team’s got really incredible culture around it … This was the best time I’ve seen them have in a game.”
After this weekend the Sooners will close out the regular season with conference series against No. 16 Mississippi State, No. 1 Texas and No. 6 Florida.
