No. 1 seed Oklahoma seeks third-straight NCAA softball title

The Associated Press

Oklahoma will seek its third straight Women’s College World Series title as the No. 1 national seed in the upcoming NCAA Women’s Softball Tournament.

The 64-team draw was announced Sunday night.

The Sooners will host the Norman Regional on Friday through Sunday at Marita Hynes Field in Norman, Oklahoma. They will try to extend their 43-game winning streak -– the longest in school history and four wins shy of the NCAA record Arizona set in 1995-96 -– when they open against Hofstra (19-25) on Friday.

This is the fourth straight season the Sooners will enter the tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, and the fifth time overall. Oklahoma defeated Texas 6-1 on Saturday to claim the Big 12 Tournament title in a rematch of last year’s national championship series.

The Sooners feature three of the top-10 finalists for USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year — juniors Jayda Coleman and Tiare Jennings and sophomore Jordy Bahl.

UCLA (52-5) is the No. 2 national seed and will host Grand Canyon on Friday in its opener in the Los Angeles Regional. The Bruins, who won the national title in 2019, are the most recent program other than Oklahoma to win it all. They are making their tournament-record 38th appearance.

The top 16 seeds will host in the regional round. Florida State — the 2018 national champion and 2021 runner-up — is seeded third. Tennessee is seeded fourth, followed by Alabama, Oklahoma State, Washington and Duke.

Stanford is seeded ninth, followed by LSU, Arkansas, Northwestern, Texas, Georgia, Utah and Clemson.

The final eight teams will play at the Women’s College World Series, which will start June 1 in Oklahoma City.

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