Unseeded Texas is the last hope to spoil Oklahoma softball's back-to-back NCAA championships

The NCAA Women’s College World Series championship series gets underway Wednesday night (June 8) as defending champion Oklahoma squares off against unseeded Texas. The No. 1 Sooners are heavy favorites — DraftKings has them at -600 for Game 1 against arch-rival Texas — and enter the three game series as the queens of the softball diamond for the 2022 season. Oklahoma lost just two regular season games and entered the postseason with a blistering 59-2 record.

In the NCAA tournament so far, the Sooners have dropped just one game as Maya Brady powered UCLA to a victory, forcing a decisive rematch for a spot in the final series. Oklahoma left no doubt, run-ruling the Bruins in a five-inning, 15-0 rout.

Jocelyn Alo leads an OU team looking to go back-to-back as champs and win the program’s fourth softball title in six seasons. Alo is one of three Sooners with over 20 home runs as well as one of three with a batting average over .400.

The Sooners feel inevitable, but not infallible.

Not if Texas has any say in the matter. The Longhorns were a bit of a longshot to make it to this point of the season, but put together wins over UCLA, Arizona and Oklahoma State (x2) in the WCWS so far. They lost their lone matchup against Oklahoma in the postseason, 7-2, and are 1-3 against the Sooners on the season. Texas did pull off a 4-2 win back on April 16, handing OU one of their two losses.

Leadoff hitter Janae Jefferson is a chaotic force for good on the Longhorns with a .416 batting average, 1.125 OPS and .639 slugging percentage. Mary Iakopo leads the team with 57 RBI and is second on the squad with 11 home runs on the season (Courtney Day has 12).

Texas has answered every call this season, overcoming the odds and outsider doubts to put itself in a position to win the programs first NCAA title in its sixth WCWS appearance.

Doing so will require the type of resilience no Sooners opponent has been able to muster yet this year.