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Getting to know OU softball 2025: Riley Zache

Bob Przybyloby:Bob Przybylo•about 15 hours•

BPrzybylo

Patty Gasso, Oklahoma
Patty Gasso, Oklahoma - © BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

The OU softball season is almost here. Almost. The four-time defending national champions, obviously, have a very different look in 2025.

So many of the names OU fans had grown to love like Jayda Coleman, Tiare Jennings, among a bevy of others, have moved on.

Only eight returning players from the four-peat squad. That means a whole new crop for head coach Patty Gasso and staff to try to get playing at a championship level.

Whether it’s through recruiting or the transfer portal, nobody is crying for OU. And Gasso landed some of the best of the best.

Now? Let’s get to know them. Before the season is underway, SoonerScoop is going to let the freshmen and transfers introduce themselves.

Riley Zache (C/INF, Fr., No. 14)

That sisterly bond, relationship?

It’s definitely a blessing. At the start, our careers were very bumpy because we didn’t really know what roles we were going to play with the game. But now, if I need to work on catching or she needs to work on pitching, we just go, ‘Hey, let’s go,’ and we go do that. It’s always nice because you always have somebody to train with you and to help push you and to help guide you and honestly sometimes to help give you that brutal honest opinion that some of us don’t want to hear. But she’s a blessing in disguise. She’s really helped push me to be the best player I can be.

Biggest adjustment?

Honestly, it was not having my sister by my side. The past 15-plus years I’ve played the game, she’s been here, and kind of getting used to just being on my own and figuring things out, and getting through rough patches on my own and everything. So just kind of that adjustment, but also the intensity, we’re here and there’s — you’re just pushing yourself a lot harder than you ever have before and you’re pushing yourself beyond the limits that you didn’t thing you had before.

OU train keeps on rolling?

It made me really excited just for the opportunity to push myself physically but also mentally. There’s a lot that goes on in the mental side of the game and they really push us here to learn the most we can and to just kind of grasp as much as we can and I really enjoy learning the game both the physical side but especially the mental side because it’s very intriguing for me to learn about that. I was just really excited to learn about all their different philosophies, how they go about everything because of how successful they are and what they do makes them different.

Gasso reaching out the first time?

For me, my story’s a little bit different. I got here and we started talking after I decommitted. It was very cool because initially I came here and ‘Oh my gosh, I get to meet Coach Gasso. This is such an amazing opportunity.’ And then I ended up getting an opportunity to come here and that’s an opportunity of a lifetime to be here, and every day is continuing to add on to that opportunity and continuing to add on to that blessing. I just am so thankful that I got to be here and got to, I guess, come along with my sister on her journey to add onto my chapter.

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