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OU senior Cydney Sanders explains why John Cena is her walkup music

Bob Przybyloby:Bob Przybylo•04/24/25•

BPrzybylo

Cydney Sanders5
OU senior Cydney Sanders. (Brett Rojo - Imagn Images)

Walkup music is about expressing yourself, and OU senior Cydney Sanders, who is pretty even-keel as a player, lets her music do the talking.

You hear a lot of hype music for the walkup moments. Sanders? Well, she’s letting everybody know her time is now, literally.

One of Sanders’ choices is “My Time is Now” by John Cena. You don’t associate professional wrestling with softball all too often, but this was not an accident.

“Well, I’m a really big wrestling fan,” Sanders said. “I’m like a really big wrestling fan. But my dad actually was telling me to use that walkup song for I don’t know how long, like since my high school years he’s been telling me to use it.

“And I finally did it my senior year and what was so cool was he was at the game when it first came on and actually hit a home run so it was pretty cool to see him smiling too. So it was a good moment for me.”

Cena is one of the all-time greats in professional wrestling, had made his name with World Wrestling Entertainment for more than 20 years. He won his 17th world title Sunday during the main event of Wrestlemania XLI in Las Vegas. And even though he has turned heel (bad), Sanders has no plans at all of altering the routine.

“He just won his 17th (heavyweight world title at Wrestlemania). So no, no changing. I’m gonna keep it the same,” Sanders said.

Cyd… Syd squared

Sanders has now been in the program for three seasons, and head coach Patty Gasso always talks about the way Sanders has improved defensively.

Now Sanders gets to be that kind of on-field/off-field mentor for freshman Sydney Barker. It’s a role Sanders has embraced and enjoyed as Barker continues to make noise in her first season at OU.

“It’s really cool. I love talking to Syd,” Sanders told SoonerScoop. “It’s like, we kind of call ourselves Cyd squared. I don’t know, it’s like weird, but I love talking to her. She’s like a born natural leader. I think she’s very intelligent and has a lot of wisdom. Like if you get the chance to hear her just speak, she has a lot of good things to say. And I think she’s grown a lot.

“Like she was already mature coming in, but now she’s like understanding the hitting, the hitting side of it. And I’m also helping her with first and everything and I think it’s really cool to have a teammate like that because you can balance each other out. Like you can have a professional conversation with someone who just came into college which is pretty cool to see.”

Sanders is hitting .309 this season with nine home runs, 29 RBIs and 31 walks. Amazingly, it’s already her final regular season home series this weekend. Just add it to the emotion that will be OU-Texas at Love’s Field.

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