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OU softball on the quest for fresh set of leaders

Bob Przybyloby:Bob Przybylo•about 10 hours•

BPrzybylo

If ever there was a problem for OU softball, honestly, head coach Patty Gasso didn’t need to do much of anything.

The beauty of a player-led team, right? Issues in the locker room, well, someone like Kinzie Hansen could figure that out.

Team looks a little out of sort? Jayda Coleman and Rylie Boone would change that in a hurry, leaders of the chaos.

The all-around brilliance of Tiare Jennings. You get it. There were leaders in every way imaginable. Vocally, by example. With their play, with their character.

So as much as the 2025 team is trying to balance the expectations that come with being the four-time defending national champions, they’re trying to find out who they are as well.

“I just went directly to those returners,” Gasso said. “So these two (Nelly McEnroe-Marinas, Ella Parker) are in like a captain pool, along with Pick (Kasidi Pickering). Hannah Coor has some really good insight. Cyd Sanders as well. I just need a little bit of senior leadership and she’s the only one we have who returns. Those five, I reached out to. We get together. We talk. I try to get the vibe of what’s going on.”

Players like Coor and Sanders have been around and understand what’s required. But they could always stand in the background, never had to be the one to give that speech.

Pickering and Parker are true sophomores and McEnroe-Marinas is a redshirt freshman. These are young players having to find their voice, their role when they might be going through struggles of their own.

Team bonding might have been as important a part to the 2025 preparation than anything else.

“The one thing that has been really cool, and I’m not going to get too far into it, but we’ve really gotten deep into the souls of some of our athletes and trying to cleanse whatever might be holding them back,” Gasso said. “And man, there’s a lot going on. It’s a good thing because it’s going on with all athletes, or non-athletes this age.

“They deal with a lot of things we don’t know about. And what I love about them is they were brave enough to tell their stories, which made us a closer team, which made me understand who they were, and those are things that haven’t really happened in the past.” 

A lot of good can come from that. It usually does when you bare your soul or let your teammates into what’s going on.

The first test is a four-day, six-game whirlwind in California from Thursday-Sunday. But it will be one test of so many that are going to be coming.

Gasso is with them every step of the way. Let’s play ball.

“So that’s why I’m really … I hope they feel the same, but I feel like we’re stepping in more as arm-in-arm because we know the struggles,” Gasso said. “I’ve shared some of mine. They’ve shared some of theirs. It’s been a pretty cool process of connection when we just are so brand new. But they were so outgoing and forthright that I’ve never had a team do anything like that.”

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