Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

OU Softball: Oklahoma and Alabama Familiar With Dramatic Postseason Battles

Originally posted on Oklahoma Sooners on SI
By Ryan Chapman | Last updated May 22, 2025 1:32 PM ET

Oklahoma and Alabama are no strangers to high-pressure postseason battles.

The Sooners dumped Alabama out of the 2019 Women’s College World Series, which served as revenge for the Crimson Tide taking down the Sooners in Super Regional action in 2015 — which was also the last time OU failed to make it to the WCWS.

Alabama captured the 2012 national title in dramatic fashion over the Sooners, which paid back Patty Gasso’s 2003 team ending the Crimson Tide’s year in Oklahoma City.

Alabama leads the all-time series over Oklahoma 12-9, bolsters by a pair of wins in the regular season series between the new conference colleagues, but Friday’s opening contest of the 2025 NCAA Tournament Super Regionals will represent the Crimson Tide’s first-ever trip to Norman.

The programs have nine combined titles — eight of those coming from Oklahoma and the lone Alabama title coming in 2012 — and Gasso and Patrick Murphy’s programs formed a bit of a non-conference rivalry from 2012-2019.

But all that history hasn’t soured the relationship between Gasso and Murphy.

“It's gonna be a classic matchup and it's gonna be hard fought,” Gasso said on Wednesday. “At the end, it's gonna be a hug for Pat Murphy and vice versa because I think we’re old enough to know that we know how hard this is and appreciate getting better from each other and wish the other team well.”

Earlier this year, Gasso admitted that she didn’t properly prepare her new-look Sooners for the environment she led them into in Tuscaloosa, forged by the wars between the two programs since the turn of the century.

“Their fans and that noise was real and it was something that I blame myself on because I, this team is so new, right? They don't know much about the history of our program,” Gasso said last month. “I know we have a history with Alabama. I've been living through it for a long time and it's normally at the World Series when everything, like it's your season's going to continue or your season's going to end.

“So we have that and I don't think we recognize that people look forward to us coming to their field and saying, ‘yeah, oh, I can't wait to see Oklahoma, this is going to be a great matchup.’”

Things will be different this weekend.

First, Alabama has to come to Norman and deal with the noise at Love’s Field.

But the Sooners are also a different team now than they were in the middle of April.

Ella Parker’s resurgence has coincided with continued growth by the Sooners’ freshmen as well as steady play from BYU transfer Ailana Agbayani.

OU is getting contributions up and down the lineup that it lacked in the first matchup with the Crimson Tide, a series in which the Sooners were held to one run in their two defeats.

Both teams have seen each other’s pitchers at their best, so there will be no surprises come 4 p.m. on Friday.

It’ll just be two iconic softball brands fighting for a spot in the WCWS, an arena Gasso is more than comfortable in.

“I think of big moments where either you're knocking us out or we're knocking you out,” Gasso said. “We've both kind of have done that through, whether it's a super regional or the World Series.

“… It's two programs — they know how to fight. They're well-coached. They come in and they're not gonna be afraid coming in here. They're coming in for their lives, as we are.”

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Sooners on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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