How OU softball is aiming to play with 'no regrets' as postseason approaches

NORMAN — When OU softball travels to Orlando for a three-game series vs. UCF this weekend, it’ll seemingly mark the final road trip for its five seniors who are looking to win four consecutive national titles.

Catcher Kinzie Hansen, shortstop Tiare Jennings, pitcher Nicole May and outfielders Jayda Coleman and Riley Boone have been members of one of the most dominant classes in softball history. With the Big 12 Tournament, the Sooners likely hosting throughout the postseason and the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, this is the group’s last chance to create memories on the road.

OU coach Patty Gasso is encouraging them to live in the moment.

“I think we just want consistency,” Gasso said. “We’re able to win games, we’re winning a lot of games. We’re still in charge of our own destiny. So I think (our goal) is to have zero regrets as we go through this and finish it. Look out for your teammates, sometimes we get lost in what we’re doing here. The expectations are grand and it just sometimes can get really tiring.

“And they’ve been doing it now for their fourth year in a row and it’s hard to outdo yourself year after year. That’s something we really want to put on the back burner, forget that and just stay in the moment. Go do this pitch by pitch and inning by inning.”

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The pressure the five have endured over their college career is unlike anything Gasso’s seen. They haven’t played in a world where OU softball wasn’t the supreme program over the rest of the country.

“We talk a lot about (the pressure),” Gasso said. “I mean, let’s be absolutely honest, and I try not to talk about it a lot, but this is the most decorated and the most elite senior class softball has ever seen. In my opinion, for what they have done, I don’t think we’ve ever seen it like this before. Especially in this day and age, it’s a little bit different.”

Alynah Torres, who has witnessed the pressure the last two years after transferring from Arizona State, is just thankful she gets to play the game at the highest level day in and day out with her teammates. However, the pressure is real and when struggles arise, Torres says the locker room’s chemistry grows stronger.

Gasso preaches shutting out outside criticism and the team has taken her advice.

“I think we came to a conclusion that we weren’t going to let the outside world dictate our moods or what’s going on,” Torres said.

The sometimes unrealistic expectations the Sooners have created have been on display more this season than in the past. When OU fell to Louisiana, dropped two games against Texas or was upset by BYU, the reproval on social media was deafening.

OU hasn’t been as dominant. Gasso has admitted her team has had “a lack of being disciplined” and after the loss to the Cougars, that they didn’t “have the ingredients as a team that can win it all.” The seven-time national champion coach thinks her team has been pressing too much, but once they start playing free again, they can beat anyone in the country.

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“It’s the expectation, ‘Do it every year,’ and we do it every year,” Gasso said. “And then we go about our business and (it’s like) ‘Do it again,’ OK we’ll do it again. Is this really realistic? We’ve made it realistic. And so the demand and expectation is really out of this world and I’m just trying to keep them grounded, knowing that the outside world really doesn’t know what’s going on in here and that we have to really understand what’s real and what’s true.

“That this is hard, it’s very hard. I think that’s the burden we’ve been carrying for a little bit and if we can get some of that weight off their shoulders and really free them up, I think you’re going to see us be our best at the right time.”

While in Florida, the team has planned activities to celebrate the seniors and spend quality time together ahead of the much-anticipated Bedlam series next weekend and the grind of the postseason.

This weekend, when the Sooners (42-4, 18-3 Big 12) face UCF, they're focused on sticking with one another and getting back to playing the way they know works.

“When we try too hard, that is not our game,” Gasso said. “It just comes super naturally because they are that elite of athletes and I think we’ve been challenged in that way.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU softball is aiming to play with 'no regrets' as postseason nears