Everything Patty Gasso said after Oklahoma fell to Mississippi State
· Yahoo Sports
Oklahoma's softball season came to an end Sunday with a 6-0 loss to Mississippi State.
It marks the first time the Sooners will not make the Women's College World Series since 2015. Coach Patty Gasso fought back tears in the opening moments of her post-game press conference as she talked about the game, the season, her freshmen and her seniors.
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Here's everything Gasso had to say.
On offense
Can I first give glory to God for who we are and how we do things and congratulate Mississippi State for a phenomenal weekend. They’re going to do some things at the World Series. I’m definitely going to be a fan of that. Sam Ricketts is one of my all-time favorites. I’m really happy for her.
I think sometimes when you want something so bad it just can’t come out that way. This team wanted it bad. They were taking hacks. We just kept flying out. I think sometimes we’re just over-swinging or our angle is wrong. Got some to the wall. Nothing hard hit, ground-ball, line-drive through the middle. That is not lack of ability. It’s just lack of focus. It’s lack of wanting to do more than that. We just kept taking big swings over and over and over again. We needed not one hero, but we needed 20. We needed everybody, somebody to get on, move ‘em over. We needed that. Just couldn’t find any juice in the way of moving runners. The dugout was engaged. Everybody wanted it. Everybody was ready. It’s just, they punched first and they punched good. We usually punch right back and we didn’t. And they punched again. You could just feel our press a little bit. That caught us.
On pitching
I thought Miali had some good pitches. They were just finding spots. They were hitting balls. It wasn’t like balls that were driven. I know she gave up one, but these are balls that were just dropping in front of us or, like, one went over Ella’s head, but Ella’s exactly where she should be from all of our notes and everything that we have. Ball hard hit up the middle. They swung hard. They found holes. It just kind of carried on. They had a lot of momentum. They had a ton of confidence. You could feel that. That’s why I think they’re a team that’s going to be dangerous at the World Series. They do have pitching, as well. Their defense is very good. But we just couldn’t find any kind of break. Nothing. That was where the pressure started to build up because we started to see the innings get shorter.
On looking forward to time remaining with pitchers today
We talk about doing hard things and oging through hard things like that to allow us to grow into women. Not everything goes your way. But those pitchers really, really wanted it for this team. When you really want it and you’re throwing a pitch, maybe that’s not exactly the feeling that you want. Same thing with hitting. I think we’ve got the stuff. We’ve got to have the trust and we’ve got to have the confidence. But we are excited about this pitching staff. They did learn. They should have learned a lot and I know they’re committed to getting better each year.
On Mississippi State starter Delainey Everett
I think this was her first start ever from what we understand. I thought that was a bold thing to do. She was cool and calm and just got us out. Wasn’t a lot of strikeouts. Just outs.
On team’s accomplishments this year
We won, which is the hardest thing to do, we won the regular-season SEC. We were the SEC champions, which is al little bit harder than playing a weekend series against everybody. We showed our consistency throughout the season. I thought that was really going to lead us. We kind of started to take this as an SEC weekend because it was Mississippi State. Winning two of three will get you to the promised land. That’s kind of how we were approaching it. I just have to say how proud I am of this team and their accomplishments. The freshmen are really something to look forward to. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without the senior class. Bela Emerling was amazing. Berzon had great innings. KD has, as well. KD has been that Steady Eddie, four-year committed athlete we appreciate so much. There’s a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to in the future. I know these guys know it. And I know they’re going to be following it. They helped this young group learn.
On Kendall Wells getting hit
It was really hard. It looked like it busted her helmet. She’s a tough young lady, that is for sure and wanted to come back into the game. But I could see that she was a little bit woozy there for a minute. That’s why we brought in the runner. The rule is if someone has concussion protocol or has to be looked at, then you can bring in somebody for free. We could have used Tia again. But giving Kendall some time. She’s very hard-headed. ‘I’m coming back. I’m coming back in.’ She doesn’t even wait for me to say something. She just takes her stuff and goes. I think at the end of the game, she started to really feel woozy a bit. She definitely is going to have to get checked out today.
This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso gives final 2026 press conference