Oklahoma Walk-Off Sends Sooners Back To WCWS Finals

OKLAHOMA CITY -- For the fifth straight season, Oklahoma earned a trip to the Women's College World Series championship series, delivering another dose of Sooner Magic and stunning Florida with a walk-off home run by Jayda Coleman in the eighth inning on Tuesday.

The No. 2 Sooners will face No. 1 Texas in a Red River Rivalry at the WCWS in a best-of-three series beginning Wednesday, just the second time since national seeding began in 2005 that the top two seeds will meet.

"We know each other very well," said Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso, who will be gunning for an unprecedented fourth straight national championship. "I don't know that there are a lot of secrets. It's going to be an absolute battle."

The Sooners' title streak looked to be in jeopardy after they were rocked Monday by Florida 9-3, then fell behind early Tuesday after the Gators hit three more home runs to lead 5-2 after three innings. But starting pitcher Kelly Maxwell settled in and found a groove, holding Florida to just one hit the rest of the way as Oklahoma clawed back.

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Oklahoma rallied to close the gap to 5-4 in the fourth inning on a home run by first baseman Cydney Sanders. Freshman Ella Parker, who homered in the first inning, then drove in a run to tie it in the bottom of the sixth.

Coleman, the senior who never has finished a season without a national title, then came through again for Oklahoma. She blasted freshman Keagan Rothrock's 154th pitch of the game -- the most she has thrown in her young Florida career -- over the fence and the glove of left fielder Korbe Ortis as a raucous pro-Oklahoma crowd at Devon Field exhaled and celebrated.

The Sooners again made history with the comeback. They won their eighth consecutive elimination game at the WCWS, tied for the longest all-time streak with Florida State from 2018 to 2021 and two UCLA streaks from the 1980s.

Now, they get ready to defend their titles, their home state and their dominance in one of the most heated rivalries in college sports. This time, however, Oklahoma has been the team fighting its way to the championship series while Texas has cruised.

The Longhorns are 3-0 in Oklahoma City, allowing just one hit in each game with no runs allowed, including a 10-0 run-rule victory over the same Florida team on Saturday.

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Filed Under: NCAA softball, Oklahoma softball, Oklahoma Sooners, Women's College World Series

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