Oklahoma Not Looking in Rearview Mirror With 2022 Season Opener

Patty Gasso has her team focused on the task ahead as the Sooners look to repeat at National Champions.

SI Sooners’ five-part series counting down the days until OU softball returns to action concludes today, breaking down Patty Gasso’s coaching staff as the Sooners look to repeat as National Champions.

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Finally, the 2022 softball season is here.

The No. 1-ranked Oklahoma Sooners will begin their National Championship defense on the West Coast, squaring off with UC Santa Barbara, and head coach Patty Gasso has a large task ahead of her.

It’s often said that it is even harder to repeat as champions than it is to win the initial title in the first place, but its a task Gasso has first hand experience in achieving.

The five-time National Champion won her third and fourth titles in consecutive seasons, finishing atop college softball in 2016 and 2017.

Through those experiences, paired with her other trips to the Women’s College World Series, Gasso knows her and the team must hit the reset button to start off 2022, regardless of how many key pieces of last year’s team return.

“The most important thing that I know through experience, that you do not look in the rearview mirror,” Gasso said during a Zoom press conference on Tuesday. “You look out the front way deals and you see what's ahead of you.

“Don't try to match what you did last year… It's a completely different journey. The biggest roadblock you can have is if you try to outdo yourself and your performances the year before.”

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Oklahoma Softball Season Preview:

• In the Circle

• The Infield

• The Outfield

• Behind the Plate

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Gasso’s core leadership group will return, as Oklahoma really only lost three contributors from the 2021 team.

The team should know what to expect, but Gasso’s lieutenants on the coaching staff with both have different challenges this year.

Associate head coach Jennifer Rocha is Gasso’s ace in the hole working with the pitchers, and Rocha will have a pair of new faces to mentor.

North Texas transfer Hope Trautwein and true freshman Jordy Bahl slot in alongside sophomore Nicole May to replace Giselle Juarez and Shannon Saile, and Gasso said Rocha is relishing the challenge to mold a new pitching staff in 2022.

Nicole May :: Ty Russell / OU Athletics

“Coach Rocha has a new exuberance with the pitching staff,” Gasso said. “Working with Jordy Bahl is something you can really enjoy as a pitching coach… And Hope, I've seen Hope’s improvement leaps and bounds. So she's really having fun kind of working with new pitchers and in reaching their potential.

“And Nicole May’s experience has been off the charts and I think that's really going to continue to catapult her. Experience is what we have more than anyone else and you can't buy it, you can't teach it, you can't learn it. You have to live it. And that's what we've been able to do.”

While Rocha works to get the best out of a pair of new faces, assistant coach JT Gasso will have the bulk of the most explosive lineup in college softball history back.

Getting the best out of the Sooner hitters is JT Gasso’s specialty, and his goal is to ensure the Oklahoma lineup isn’t trying to chase their own 2021 production.

Jocelyn Alo returns chasing down the NCAA c / OU Athletics

“They're getting really frustrated when they face our pitches,” Patty Gasso said. “And ‘why can't I hit like I was,’ you know, that kind of talk. And we're like, ‘you know, you need to knock that off right now.’ And that is thinking backwards. And that's what we don't want them to do.”

One of the hallmarks of OU’s lineup last year was the team’s ability to think through games and get better and better at dialing in on opposing pitchers as each batter got more opportunities at the plate.

Patty Gasso said there are already signs of that continuing this year, which is a testament to the work JT Gasso has done with the lineup.

“The other day we had pitchers throwing live,” Patty Gasso said, “… And then we had a group of six live hitters going against, you know, pitchers, one pitcher at a time.

“And the group of six would gather together and talk I could hear them talking. ‘Alright, let's get together. Let's get our game plan together here.’ And they're coaching each other. And they're learning and they're talking coach talk, and that his greatest compliment JT could ever get is knowing that they're listening and they're learning and they're sharing.”

The coaching staff won’t truly know if their offseason work has paid off until the games get going, but the wait for that time is now over.

Oklahoma and UC Santa Barbara will open the season Thursday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., and the game will be streamed online on ESPN+.

So long as the team sticks together, Patty Gasso said, they’ll have a good chance to stay locked into the moment, which will produce the best results for 2022.

“I think it's just natural behavior to want to outdo yourself or live up to what people believe your expectations,” Gasso said. “… And we got to understand this isn't about trying to please anyone.

“It's about playing as a team and doing it together.”

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