Kinzie Hansen explains why 2024 national championship is more sentimental for Oklahoma

It must be nice to be able to compare and contrast four different national championships in four straight seasons. Oklahoma Softball is in that rarely unique spot, though, following their victory of the 2024 Women’s College World Series.

Sooners catcher Kinzie Hansen considered this fourth straight title by measuring it up to the other three following the 8-4 victory over No. 1 Texas in Oklahoma City. To her as a grad student, this one was more personal since she got to do it with a group of teammates that she started and has spent a lot of time with at their program over the last few years.

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“This one, to me? I definitely felt a little bit more sentimental,” said Hansen. “We grew up together. I came in at 17 with (Rylie) Boone. Then they came in freshman year after COVID, Kelly (Maxwell) transferred.”

Oklahoma, the No. 2 seed in this field, clinched their four-peat with a sweep over the top-seeded Longhorns. They lost the regular-season series at 2-1 in Austin but won all three meetings in the postseason in the Big 12 Championship and now in the final of the Women’s College World Series.

The Sooners did so by opening it up with three runs apiece at the bottom of the fourth and sixth. After Texas had a 3-2 after the top of the fourth, they took a 5-3 lead themselves by singling several before a double by Cydney Sanders scored all three runs. Three more at the bottom of the sixth then sealed the deal with no response from the Longhorns at the top of the seventh.

With the mission now accomplished, Hansen can now look back on it and appreciates the overall work that it took for Oklahoma to do what they did, whether finishing at 59-7, pushing their record in those four years to 235-15, and winning an unprecedented fourth straight title. It took each of them to get from start to finish and get through it all to climb to the peak yet again.

“I’m so, so proud of this team and everyone had their hand in it,” said Hansen. “It was never one hero at the plate or on the mound or anything like that. This was a team effort. We fought all season.”

“Everybody had something to say about us all the time. People counted us out. It was just a grind. All in mentally, physically,” Hansen said. “We fought the whole year. It was all so worth it in this moment.”