Patty Gasso Playing Juggling act With Deep Oklahoma Lineup

 Not that she’s not used to it, but Oklahoma’s Patty Gasso is working hard to maintain a delicate balance.

The Sooners returned eight regulars from last season’s lineup that helped them to the Women’s College World Series semifinals.

To that they added a trio of freshmen who at various levels are demanding regular at-bats.

Through nine games, only four players have started every game — Kasidi Pickering, Nelly McEnroe-Marinas, Gabbie Garcia, and Ella Parker.

Twelve different position players have started three or more games.

Gasso has had plenty of deep lineups before, but the dynamic has shifted in recent years with the advent of name, image and likeness opportunities for players, as well as relaxed transfer rules.

Where young players used to come up through a program, sitting behind established players, now having a young player sit often leads to them transferring out for guaranteed playing time.

“I think any coach would tell you that’s the biggest challenge, especially with the opportunity to move however you want and whenever you want — and there’s money behind it and all that,” Gasso said. “All I’m trying to do is help these young girls turn into women and make them feel like this is home, that they’ve never learned more, that they’re being well taken care of and that they’re appreciated, that they’re loved.

“So much so, that they would say, ‘I don’t know that I really want to go, because I really know that I am growing here as a woman.’ I can’t tell you that that always is going to work, but that is who we are and we’ve never changed that. We’ve always had that philosophy of creating the athlete into a woman, vs. wins and losses or things like that. And I’m always about opportunity. If you are locked in and loaded, you’re going to get an opportunity at some point.”

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And plenty of players are getting opportunities — and taking advantage of them.

The Sooners are hitting a nation-best .462 as a team, with only one player hitting below .333. That player, freshman Kendall Wells, is hitting .296 but has four home runs and eight RBIs.

Their 38 home runs are also tops in the country, with no other team hitting more than 30 as of Monday.

All 14 position players on the OU roster who have played so far — freshman Ori Mailo is redshirting — have hit home runs and have multiple hits. Only two players have fewer than five hits.