It’s hard to imagine a time when Patty Gasso was on the losing end of the eight-run rule.
It’s only happened a few times, beginning when the then-first year Sooners coach met Mike Candrea and No. 4 ranked Arizona on Feb. 24, 1995. Like many modern day OU games, it only lasted five innings, but the Sooners were thumped 12-1 for their third loss of the season.
After providing Gasso with a ‘Welcome to the league’ moment, Candrea and the Wildcats met, and stomped, the Sooners five more times in 1995. In all, Arizona outscored OU 70-12.
It was a wake up call for Gasso, who knew she needed to adjust.
“He’s the reason why I had to learn how to do things different because when I was here as a young coach, he was run-ruling the daylights out of us,” Gasso said. “I just had to take it and learn.”
The response to the defeats suffered to Candrea’s Wildcats has been nearly 30 years of dominance. Now, after the Sooners’ nine-inning 8-7 win over Clemson in game two of the Norman Super Regional, Gasso and OU collected its 48th consecutive win, amassing the record set by Candrea’s Wildcats in 1996-97.
“What Patty has put together, it’s just so many years of having close relationships,” three-time All-American and former Arizona player Alison McCutcheon said. “It’s just something that you look at and just go, ‘Wow, there’s something different there.’ And I know a lot of other teams try to do it, but I think they do it with the intent of … furthering their own gain, whereas she’s very much in the background.
“She really wants the limelight on her players.”
Arizona legend and three-time All-American Leticia Pineda-Boutté was unaware of the record, which she helped set, until she recently scrolled through Twitter and came across a tweet mentioning it. Like Pineda, McCutcheon hadn’t heard about it until it was brought to her attention a few years ago. It was a common theme on Candrea’s team.
“We didn’t try to hold onto anything, we just went out and tried to win every single game, one game at a time, (but) not for any record,” Leah O’Brien-Amico, a three-time All-American who played from 1993-97, said. “That’s what I think Oklahoma is doing. … Let everybody else talk about that, we’re just talking about what we’re doing this next pitch.
“If you were to talk to Patty, I would not be surprised if she said the exact same thing.”
O’Brien’s assumption was spot on.
“I'm not somebody that even knows (about the record) unless you all are saying it,” Gasso said while addressing the media Wednesday. “I don't count the wins. I don't look back in the record books. What does (that) do for us? What does it give us? Bragging rights? Our players don't talk about it. I don't talk about it. We don't think about it. We just want to get to the World Series. That's it. However that works. It doesn't give us anything. It doesn't give us a trophy.
“Trophies stay here forever. Titles stay here forever. Records are meant to be broken.”
Neither Candrea nor Gasso talked about it, yet both accomplished it. While the record stands as an impressive feat, it’s just one in the long line of two legendary coaches with similar approaches and track records — Candrea won eight national titles while Gasso is in pursuit of her seventh.
The two each brought their respective programs to the top of the college softball mountain. Pineda, McCutcheon and O’Brien, all of whom played on the 1996-97 Arizona teams under Candrea and have worked with or built a relationship with Gasso, agree on the similarity of the two. Both have great amounts of trust in their players, and neither are ever satisfied.
“They build so much belief … and they’ve already set the standard, but they keep raising the bar,” O’Brien said. “That’s the (mindset), that you’ve never reached your pinnacle. So as great as you are, as many records as you’ve broken, they don’t talk about that stuff. They just keep saying, ‘How can we get better?’ and they find ways to do that."
Candrea would notice Pineda moping around the dugout amid struggles at the plate, to which he’d redirect his attention from coaching third base to deliver a few reassuring remarks.
“Hey, you’re fine,” Candrea would say. “You’re a great hitter. Just see the ball, hit the ball. Simplify.”
The simplicity stood out to Pineda.
“He was instrumental in noticing when we were struggling and when we were trying to break out of a slump, he would come and say the most simple things, where you feel so confident,” Pineda said. “And through my experiences with coach Gasso and hearing some of the conversations she's having with her players, it sounds like she has a similar balance. (The players) get to know her on a personal level, but also there's a time and a place to stay focused.”
Trusting his players became a defining characteristic of Candrea’s coaching style. The team would hold brief practices the day before its games, where Candrea would throw batting practice to each player. All it took was a satisfactory first hack followed by a ‘Coach, I’m good,’ for a player to convince Candrea they were ready. No questioning followed; Candrea trusted them.
Pineda, who helped Gasso and then-assistant Melyssa Lombardi work one of their summer camps at OU, noticed the same theme with the Sooners’ coach.
“It was life changing just to see how she operates,” Pineda said. “I definitely could tell there were parallels with coach Candrea because (of) the way she treats her athletes, where … it's a two way respect thing. That was a huge deal for us because we felt really empowered. We had a father figure in him.
“Coach Gasso … (is) a mother figure to many of these athletes. She’s definitely a great role model for many women.”
McCutcheon recalls an instance where travel plans went awry, forcing the team to spend the night in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The airport provided the team with a room, where every player and assistant would sleep before their morning flight.
The only one who didn’t was Candrea. He spent the entire night parked outside the room with both feet propped up on a chair across from his own seat, blocking the single-door entrance.
“We knew we were going to be safe,” McCutcheon said. “That was always the feeling. There's no better way of breeding loyalty than knowing that you're safe.”
The same care Candrea showed his players amid their dynasty has become a staple of Gasso’s Sooners.
“I think it's the genuine factor, the one that says ‘My door is always open,’ or ‘Let me help you,’” McCutcheon said. “Those similarities and characteristics, I think only translate once in a lifetime, from what I've seen. … She's just very open with everybody and says, ‘If you need anything, let me know.’ And that's the same thing coach Candrea was all about.”
While the theme of OU’s streak has been dominance, as it’s run-ruled 27 of 57 opponents this season, the Sooners have been battle tested at points. Its first test came on March 14 against then-No. 5 Florida State, who led 4-3 in the fourth inning before the Sooners tallied a pair of runs to regain the lead, which they’d take to the finish line.
During Game 2 of the Sooners’ three-game set with Texas on April 1, the Longhorns led throughout the game until center fielder Jayda Coleman blasted an opposite-field home run to even the score in the bottom of the seventh inning. After OU loaded the bases later in the inning, catcher Kinzie Hansen delivered a walk-off base hit, marking consecutive win No. 24.
.@OU_Softball down 2 in the 7th, then Jayda Coleman goes yard and ties it up 😱 pic.twitter.com/BLbYIwjn6M
— ESPN (@espn) April 1, 2023
Kinzie Hansen wins it for the #Sooners pic.twitter.com/G5Cea4ilOr
— Louis Raser (@LouisRaser) April 1, 2023
On May 6, the Sooners were on their heels again throughout their battle with Oklahoma State. OU mustered three hits and no runs through six innings before rallying for four runs in the seventh to secure a 4-2 victory.
“We were the same way. You get into those couple games (where you’re trailing), and those are sometimes the best tests that you can have because you want to know, ‘How do we respond when we're on the other side of what we're usually doing,’” O’Brien said. “When you get that opportunity, it's all about that clutch, timely hit. That’s what it takes to win national championships. And that's why they've been national champions the last few years.”
COME THROUGH IN THE 𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇, @_tiarejennings pic.twitter.com/Mts7slrgPG
— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) May 6, 2023
As for consecutive win No. 48 on Saturday, it took everything the Sooners had. What began as seemingly another OU blowout after Coleman and infielder Tiare Jennings led the game off with back-to-back home runs quickly turned to a birthday disaster for Gasso.
The Sooners built a four-run cushion in the fourth inning and the mind of the Sooner faithful likely went to a familiar place — expecting a run-rule. However, OU received a taste of its own medicine when the Tigers' next two batters reached base via a double and a walk. Clemson’s Maddie Moore then hit a low line drive that snuck over the left field fence to bring the Tigers within a run.
Maddie Moore comes up clutch for @clemsonsoftball! 💪The Tigers make it a 1️⃣ run game!#RoadToWCWS x 🎥 ESPN pic.twitter.com/65hRfTKs2F
— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 27, 2023
Insult quickly turned to injury when all nine Clemson batters came to the plate in the fifth, four of whom scored. The Tigers held a 7-4 advantage until the seventh inning, when Hansen, down to her final strike, elevated a three-run home run over the left field fence to even the contest.
After Jennings’ home run in the ninth inning made it 8-7, the Sooners capped their uncanny comeback with a scoreless bottom half of the inning. With the odds stacked against it, OU believed.
“It’s really easy to believe in ourselves and in each other when your coaching staff never has a doubt that you will get it done,” Hansen said. “We got into some trouble (and our coaches) could’ve easily given up on us. Down to the very last pitch, they believed in us. And when we feel that, there’s never a doubt in our mind that we can do it.
“They instill that (mindset of) ‘We can do it all if we put our minds to it.’”
OU may have bent, but it never broke through 48 consecutive games, a testament to the game-by-game mindset Gasso instilled in her players.
“If I were to talk about what it came down to, I would say it was in how you prepared every single day,” O’Brien said. “And I know Patty Gasso focuses on the same exact thing.
“I’m not surprised it’s an Oklahoma team that’s beating this record.”
OU now holds the record, one it has the chance to expand on in the Women’s College World Series beginning Thursday. With the belief Gasso has built, the Sooners have positioned themselves well for their trek to a third consecutive title.
“I still feel like the only team that could beat OU is OU itself,” McCutcheon said. “And that speaks a lot to Patty Gasso and what she can bring out of the players just because she cares about them as people rather than just athletes.”
This story was edited by Colton Sulley and Nick Coppola.
