Best of Patty Gasso: Week 1 – OU season is here

It’s not months, weeks or days until OU softball. We’re getting down to just being hours away from the 2024 season getting underway in Mexico on Thursday morning.

The Sooners ended the 2023 season 61-1 and on a 53-game winning streak, culminating in winning their third straight national championship.

Not about 2023 anymore. Onto 2024. And that’s the message from head coach Patty Gasso as the target gets even bigger on OU this season.

Best of Patty Gasso – Week 1

The pitching staff? Using all six pitchers?

“Every day they’re glaring at this lineup. And the lineup knows pretty much everything. They have worked on changing game plans against certain hitters and mix them up a little bit. But you’re gonna see again what’s the matchup? What’s the matchup? Is it Karlie Keeney to start, someone to close? We’ve got six very viable pitchers. All of them could help us in some way shape or form.

“It may be very likely that you see Nicole May to get started because she’s like the matriarch of this pitching staff and she’s earned it and deserved it. But you’re gonna see a lot of looks this weekend as well. We’ve got to get this figured out as we get to who is going to be a game changer for us in the first three weeks.

“Hitters are getting better and a pitcher can’t sustain for seven innings much these days so we need — we’re looking at who’s our starter, who’s our middle reliever, who’s our closer. Three of these pitchers have a role in a game and they know it. I think what happens for us at least is when we get in the postseason, our pitchers are fresh. They’re not worn out. That’s a big plus for us.”

Hannah Coor keeps fighting?

“It’s big for her. She works really hard. She’s got impingements on her lower back. That’s very painful. Some days it’s okay, some days it isn’t. But she’s trying to fight through it. And through that, she had the best fall — one of the best of anyone on our team. So can she maintain that. Can we handle the pain? What can we do to help her? It’s something that there’s really no solution to. So she’s having to deal with a lot of pain and it’s just wearing on her psyche a little bit. But if we can keep her steady she’s going to be a big help to us as well.”

Karlie Keeney’s thumb all good? Back to pitching?

“I’ll give you just the backstory on this. We had our first practice, and I always jump on the pitchers — ‘You’ve got to be athletes. You’ve got to step up. You’ve got to be like infielders.’ I’m just all over. So we’re in this drill and we’re moving really fast and pitchers don’t work that way but Karlie Keeney does and she rounds second like she’s going from shortstop, I’m hitting the ball by second, she lays out and dives for it, breaks her finger. First practice of our season. So I’ve not seen her pitch until about Jan. 15 or so. So she’s catching up real quick but she’s got a really fun, gritty style about her.  She’s focused. She’s a fighter. I’m really, really excited to see what she can do for us.”

What’s the leadership look in 2024? Replacing Grace Lyons in that way?

“Tiare’s quite different than Grace. She’s handling short stop really well. She’s not a big vocal, not that at all. So we have co-captains this year which is Kinzie Hansen, who has more the voice, Tiare Jennings, that has more the talk it out type. I’ve used Rylie Boone. Rylie Boone’s the one that checks on everybody individually. How you doing, kind of that social.

“And Jayda Coleman is just the hype girl that’s just really really smart about softball. And you might look at her and go gosh she’s incredible and she’s crazy, she’s really really smart. She would be a really really good coach if she wanted to, but she doesn’t have the patience for that. So she’s gonna go off and be a trophy wife for some football player (Billy Bowman) someday.”