Patty Gasso runs down bittersweet aspects of last games at Marita Hynes Field

For the past 25 years, Marita Hynes Field has served as the home base for the Oklahoma softball program. Six different national champions called the field home and many other Women’s College World Series teams to go along with the countless players within the Sooners organization.

This weekend is set to be the last time Oklahoma plays on the field with a new facility, Love’s Field, expected to open next year in time for the season. The team hopes to end on a final two victories as it goes against Clemson in the Normal Super Regional for a spot in the Women’s College World Series on the line.

“It’s like living in a home that you know you’ve lived in for years and years and years,” Sooners head coach Patty Gasso said ahead of this weekend’s Super Regional. “It’s hard to take all your pictures down and know that your family grew up in this home. But now we have an opportunity for a new beginning. That’s how I look at it.”

Sooners head coach Patty Gasso has been the leader of the Oklahoma program every season the team has played at Marita Hynes Field.

Gasso took over the program in 1995. The team moved into Marita Hynes Field in 1998.

That means Gasso was also the coach for the final few seasons at Reeves Park, the home before Marita Hynes Field.

She remembers the challenges of playing there and how different it was for her to be able to coach at the ballpark when it first opened iup.

“I didn’t have to pick up trash before practice like we did over at Reeves Park,” Gasso said of what changed when the program moved to Marita Hynes Field. “We didn’t get kicked off the field at five o’clock because they had to get fields ready for slow pitch. That’s what we were dealing with. You would never know we were a collegiate team by the way we were treated when we went over there.”

Love’s Field is located at a new location on Oklahoma’s campus about one mile south of Marita Hynes Field. It will have a capacity of 3,000 people with expansion opportunities considered as part of the design.

The entire complex will be about 44,000 square feet, which is about triple the square footage of current complex.

“I felt like we went from playing basketball on the blacktop to coming into a real gymnasium,” Gasso said. “That’s kind of what it felt like — just a big step up. Now we’re going from a gymnasium to a castle. It’s just a wow factor. But right now our field here is probably not in the top four in the Big 12 and we’re still getting recruits to come here. We’re still winning games here. The fans are still pushing their way into the stadium. Whether it looks beautiful or not or whether it has enough seats or not, it’s still where this program was born — right here.”