Best of OU HC Patty Gasso: Time for Sooners to respond

Take that deep breath and get back to work for OU softball. The winning streak is no longer the elephant in the room, back to just to playing.

The Sooners, No. 1 in some polls and 18-1, will be asked to bounce back from a loss for the first time in more than 12 months with the 71-game streak no longer a thing.

If there’s one thing head coach Patty Gasso is not worried about? How the team will respond.

The best of the best from Gasso as OU gets ready for four games at Love’s Field in the next five days.

Love’s Field reflection?

I didn’t know what to expect. I’m just glad we got through it. I think when we get back on that field, we’re going to clean those things up. We needed a game like that. I know that sounds crazy. But this winning streak is not going to go on forever. We needed to have something to reset us because we had been playing just OK. Had been playing good enough to win. We had been playing really good, at times. But we needed that game to get off us. Restart and balance the ship a little.

Reset button this week?

I think just their comfort level. Gotta get comfortable. We had some new situations where parents are behind us and behind the dugout. That’s new for us. The amount of crowd noise is like the World Series. I don’t think we were ready for that.

You always want to win all of your games on your home field. So I think we put some unnecessary pressure on ourselves to perform. We just weren’t as free and as sharp as we normally are. So we just talked about how we got that out the way. We got the win streak out of the way. I don’t know if they were really thinking about it, but it is just looming, you know? So I’m like, ‘Don’t be disappointed. What we did is history making.’ So don’t think that one loss is defining us. That’s ridiculous. What we’ve done has never been done before. So I just feel like it’s a new beginning and a new start for us this week.”

Tuesday’s response?

That’s one thing I’m not concerned about is how they’re going to respond because I know that they will want that back and they will. It stung. It stung. But at the same time, we talked a little bit about, as much as it stung, you need to kind of be … give credit to Louisiana for playing so well in that kind of environment. There’s a lot of things you can appreciate that have nothing to do with us. That’s one thing we talked about. That was a big game for them. That could turn around their season. Good for them and good for us for learning that we aren’t good enough right now. That’s how they’re made. They’ll respond. I know they’ll respond. They’ll be ready.

Up to seniors to lead?

I trust them. I think some of them were a little tight. Some of the elders were, I don’t know, not going to say tight, we were all just wowed. The seniors know what to do. They’ve been there, done that. They’ve been playing here since they’re freshmen and playing for championships. Know what it feels like. It’s just about getting everybody to play a little more free. Not thinking about outcomes, but the process. That’s how we’ve always been, very good at playing in that style.

A word on Texas A&M Commerce (Wednesday’s opponent)?

Commerce is a new program with new coaches and they’re trying to get themselves up and running. So we are not gonna worry about how good they are, we’re gonna worry about what we need to do to be better. So that’s really the focus tomorrow night.