The Oklahoma softball team enters the Big 12 Tournament as one of the top teams in the country, but the Sooners haven’t been as dominant this season as some years in the past.
OU is coming off of a home series loss to Oklahoma State and is 46-6 as the postseason begins, after going 61-1 last season.
Still, Sooners coach Patty Gasso feels good about where her team is heading down the stretch. Gasso said ahead of the Big 12 Tournament that her players are looking forward to having the chance to avenge some earlier losses in the conference tourney.
“I think this team is a team that likes the opportunity to get – whoever might have beaten them, they hope to see them again to make it right or Revenge Tour, whatever you want to call it,” Patty Gasso said .
In addition to dropping the series to the Cowgirls to close out the regular season, Oklahoma also lost two of three games against Texas this year.
With the way the conference tourney schedule sets up, OU would potentially play Oklahoma State in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament and Texas in the finals.
The Sooners are looking at the next few days as an opportunity to not only get revenge but also improve their NCAA Tournament seeding.
“There’s things we can gain from this weekend. To win it all, we likely are going through two really good teams, which would help maybe move us again,” Gasso said. “We don’t care right now, to be honest – 1, 2, 4, 5, as long as we’re in the [top] 8 and we’re home throughout, that’s what we’re looking for. So I really think we can catapult off of this last game we had Sunday.”
The top 8 teams in the NCAA Tournament will earn a national seed and will play at home until the Women’s College World Series.
As for the Sunday game Gasso referenced, it’s the one matchup Oklahoma won this past weekend. After dropping Game 1 and Game 2, the Sooners cruised to an 8-2 victory over Oklahoma State in Game 3.
Now OU hopes to build off of that and win a Big 12 championship over the next few days.
“We’ve had long conversations about how this is the last thing you’re going to do as a senior. And it’s the thing you want to remember the most,” Gasso said. “So don’t try too hard. When they have fun, and that honestly is why we were a little bit late today, because they were having so much fun on the field that we lost track of time. They were competing in a way that I haven’t seen them do in a while.
“So really love the direction that we’re going right now as they look to put it all together at the right time. So the Big 12 Tournament, of course we want to win it, but we want to see our steps go in the right direction. Because ultimately we’re after winning all of it.”
The post Patty Gasso admits Oklahoma carries a revenge mindset into Big 12 Tournament appeared first on On3 .
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