The Women’s College World Series will open on Thursday with a field led by four-time defending national champion Oklahoma and four other teams from the SEC.
In addition to the No. 2 Sooners, who rolled over No. 15 Alabama in the super regionals, the eight-team field includes No. 3 Florida, No. 6 Texas, No. 7 Tennessee and Mississippi.
The Rebels are the only unseeded team still standing after winning two of three against No. 4 Arkansas, capped by Sunday’s 7-4 clincher, to reach the Women’s College World Series for the first time in program history.
Rounding out the final eight are No. 9 UCLA, No. 12 Texas Tech and No. 16 Oregon. The Red Raiders swept No. 5 Florida State behind another two outstanding starts from junior NiJaree Canady.
The Women’s College World Series kicks off with a quadrupleheader: Texas plays Florida, Tennessee plays Oklahoma, Ole Miss faces Texas Tech and Oregon takes on UCLA. The final eight teams will play a double-elimination bracket that gives way to a best-of-three championship series early next month.
The rest of the field will be chasing Oklahoma, which run-ruled the overmatched Crimson Tide in five innings in Saturday’s 13-2 win that advanced it to the Women’s College World Series for the ninth time in a row.
Led by the Sooners and the SEC, here are the biggest winners and losers from the super regionals:
Winners
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is the clear favorite to win yet another national championship after a relatively stressful regular season – compared only to the program’s recent standard – that saw the Sooners drop seven conference games as new members of the SEC. But they’ve been on fire this tournament: OU has scored in double figures three times and won all five games by a combined score of 47-5. The second win against Alabama included an eight-run third inning that started off with a two-run shot by shortstop Gabriella Garcia, who would homer again with a runner on in the fifth.
NiJaree Canady
One of college softball’s biggest stars has stepped up to carry her team to an unexpected Women’s College World Series berth. Texas Tech is not a national powerhouse, nor even a regional one: The program had made only six tournament appearances before this season, never advancing out of the regionals. The reigning national player of the year at Stanford who transferred after last season, Canady has changed everything for the Red Raiders. She was brilliant in Tallahassee, tossing a two-hit shutout in the opener and then going the distance in a 2-1 win to eliminate the Seminoles. The second win moved Canady to 30-5 on the year.
Texas
A rematch against rival OU in the championship series is still in play after Texas climbed out of a 1-0 hole in the series against Clemson. That took some work: After falling behind with Thursday’s 7-4 loss, the Longhorns needed extra innings to even the series and then had to hold off the Tigers’ late rally in Saturday’s 6-5 clincher. Junior shortstop Leighann Goode carried Texas to the WCWS by going 6 for 8 with four RBIs in the two wins.
Losers
Nebraska
The Cornhuskers took the first game of the series against Tennessee but went cold at the plate in losing 3-2 on Saturday and then 1-0 in Sunday’s finale. The Volunteers figured out Jordy Bahl at the plate, at least, holding the junior to one hit in six at-bats with three strikeouts in these final two games. Bahl also took both losses on the mound in matchups against SEC Pitcher of the Year Karlyn Pickens, who worked her way out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth inning of the clincher to send the Volunteers to the WCWS for the ninth time in program history. While a painful way to end a breakthrough season, the Cornhuskers are set to return most of this year’s team, led by Bahl, and should be back in the national mix next May.
Clemson
The disappointment of coming up short in Austin after taking the first game of the series isn’t new even for this young program: Clemson has now lost in the super regionals three times since playing its first game in 2020. While that marquee postseason moment has yet to arrive, the Tigers seem even more destined to eventually collide with the WCWS after pushing the defending national runner-up to the brink. Still, they’ll be kicking themselves until next spring after leaving a combined 17 runners on the bases and allowing four unearned runs in the two losses to the Longhorns.
Arkansas
Arkansas finished six spots higher than Ole Miss in the final SEC standings but never could quite figure out the Rebels, who took two of three against the Razorbacks to open league play in early March before dropping two of three over the weekend in Fayetteville. This dropped Arkansas to 0-4 in super regionals play, with all four appearances coming since hiring coach Courtney Deifel in 2016; it is one of two SEC programs, along with Mississippi State, to never reach the WCWS.