For a moment, Florida State had hope.
After a moment, Oklahoma snatched it away. The Sooners bested the Seminoles 3-1 on Thursday night to clinch the national championship, their third consecutive title.
The championship favorites from the season’s outset, the Sooners lived up to expectations from February through June. Victors in 61 of their 62 games on the year, the Sooners end the season riding an active 53-game winning streak, an NCAA record-long number.
Following a 5-0 victory in Wednesday night’s Game 1 of the WCWS Championship Series, the Sooners entered Thursday needing just one win to clinch the title. Alex Storako, in her first and only season as a Sooner following a transfer from Michigan, got the start in the circle; for Florida State, who else but Kathryn Sandercock would get the ball with the season on the line?
Both starters pitched well; both teams were held scoreless through the first three frames. In the bottom of the fourth inning, with FSU the designated home team for game two, two-way star Mack Leonard put together an impressive at-bat against Storako. After a bouncer down the first-base line was called foul, Leonard stayed in the box and, a few pitches later, proceeded to golf one over the right-field fence.
It was the first lead of the championship series for FSU and just the second time that the Sooners had trailed in the entirety of the Women’s College World Series.
The OU deficit lasted for all of an ESPN commercial break.
Leading off the top of the fifth inning, Cydney Sanders took a 2-0 pitch from Sandercock and drove it to right-center field, not far from where Leonard had hit hers just a few minutes earlier.
Grace Lyons was the next one to the plate, now stepping in in a tied ball game. After a first pitch ball and two pitches fouled away, the game was tied no longer. Lyons launched the 1-2 pitch into the left field bleachers, giving the Sooners their first lead of the game.
It was a lead they would not relinquish.
Jordy Bahl entered the circle to pitch in the bottom of the fifth and turned in her latest impressive outing at Hall of Fame Stadium. A year removed from an injury-hampered WCWS debut in 2022, Bahl was electric in Oklahoma City this time around. Bahl held Florida State off the board for the final three innings, a fitting finale to her World Series showing.
Oklahoma ended the year with a 61-1 overall record and are the second team in Division 1 softball history to win three consecutive national championships, joining the 1988-90 UCLA Bruins.
