The road to Hall of Fame Stadium
The NCAA draw opens Friday with 16 four-team regionals, most notably at Marita Hynes Field in Norman, not to mention Cowgirl Stadium in Stillwater
Note: For the next three weeks Oklahoma Columnist will serve as your source for all things Sooners softball as Oklahoma begins its chase for a sixth NCAA softball national championship and a second straight. Oklahoma Columnist will be on site in Norman for the regional and super regional rounds before heading to Hall of Fame Stadium for the Women’s College World Series. We’ll keep tabs, too, on Oklahoma State’s trip through the brackets, while maintaining a wide angle view on the entire draw. Enjoy.
The NCAA softball draw was revealed Sunday evening and, no surprise, Oklahoma State’s pilfering of the Big 12 tourney crown from its Bedlam rival the day before at Hall of Fame Stadium did not keep Oklahoma from receiving the No. 1 overall seed for a second straight year, the spot from which the Sooners will try winning a second straight national championship.
Oklahoma (49-2) opens regional play at home on Friday, playing host Texas A&M (29-26), Minnesota (26-24-1) and Prairie View A&M (20-28).
Norman Regional schedule
Friday
Game 1: Texas A&M vs. Minnesota, 4 p.m. (ESPN2)
Game 2: Oklahoma vs. Prairie View, 6:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Saturday
Game 3: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, TBA
Game 4: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, TBA
Game 5: Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 winner, TBA
Sunday
Game 6: Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, TBA
Game 7: Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, if necessary
The big draw
Here are the top 16 seeds (and regional hosts) in the 64-team NCAA draw:
1. Oklahoma
2. Florida State
3. Virginia Tech
4. Arkansas
5. UCLA
6. Alabama
7. Oklahoma State
8. Arizona State
9. Northwestern
10. Clemson
11. Texas
12. Alabama
13. Washington
14. Florida
15. Missouri
16. Central Florida
• Were every regional host to prevail the first weekend of the draw, the super regional matchups would look like this:
Central Florida at Oklahoma
Missouri at Florida State
Florida at Virginia Tech
Washington at Arkansas
Duke at UCLA
Alabama at Tennessee
Clemson at Oklahoma State
Northwestern at Arizona State
• If you haven’t put it together , that means the SEC leads the way with five of the top 16 seeds, the ACC is next with four, followed by the Pac-12 with three, the Big 12 with two and the AAC with one.
• If Oklahoma State (41-12) is to get to the super regional round, it will have to go through a Stillwater Regional that also includes Nebraska (40-14), North Texas (35-14) and Fordham (30-20).
Here’s the schedule:
Friday
Game 1: Nebraska vs. North Texas, 5 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 2: Fordham vs. Oklahoma State, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Saturday
Game 3: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 1 p.m.
Game 4: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 3:30 p.m.
Game 5: Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 winner, 6 p.m.
Sunday
Game 6: Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 3 p.m.
Game 7: Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, if necessary
Noteworthy
• Rare repeat?: Should the top two seeds in the national draw wind up reaching the WCWS’ best two-of-three championship series, it will be a repeat of last year’s championship series between Oklahoma and Florida State, marking the first time that’s happened since the championship series was instituted in 2005.
In the era of the single championship game, 1982-2004, the same two programs meeting with the national championship at stake was more common.
UCLA and Fresno State met for the national championship three consecutive seasons beginning in 1988, the Bruins winning all three.
Arizona and UCLA met for the national championship three consecutive seasons beginning in 1991, the Wildcats winning in ’91 and ’93 and the Bruins in ’92.
UCLA prevailed over Cal for the national championship in both 2003 and ’04.
• Doni-where? Mackenzie Donihoo, the Sooner outfielder who made herself famous at last year’s WCWS by turning in multiple defensive gems in the Hall of Fame Stadium outfield, has entered the transfer portal, Extra Inning Softball reported on Monday.
Donihoo last appeared for the Sooners on April 10 against Texas Tech and did not make the road trip for OU’s next Big 12 conference series at Texas.
“You will not see her again this season,” Sooner coach Patty Gasso said a week ago. “And that’s pretty much all I’ll say about it.”
• Sooners’ big question: The subhead to Oklahoma’s coming up short at the Big 12 tournament to Bedlam rival Oklahoma State was freshman pitcher Jordi Bahl’s unavailability.
“There’s a little bit of soreness and we don’t want to mess with that,” Gasso said concerning Bahl entering last weekend.
Though Hope Trautwein’s 0.31 earned run average is insanely low, it’s still Bahl who’s considered the Sooners best pitcher, with a 21-1 record and a 0.95 ERA. The giveaway is Bahl’s 132 1/3 innings pitched — and 199 strikeouts over them — more than 30 more innings pitched than Trautwein and more than 60 more than Nicole May.
Gasso will be speaking with media Tuesday evening in advance of the Norman regional and Bahl’s readiness to pitch this weekend is bound to be one of the first questions.