Jun. 10—During a celebration of the program’s seventh national championship on Friday at Marita Hynes Field, Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione announced that a statue of softball coach Patty Gasso is in the works to be released next year.

“I get emails and social media posts and people stopping me, ‘When are we going to dedicate a statue for Patty Gasso?” Castiglione said to the crowd. “So, ya’ll we do things and we try to keep a secret for a while, but you just won’t let us keep a secret. So tonight I’m just breaking it out. We’re going to have a statue for coach Gasso next year.”

Gasso has coached 29 seasons with the Sooners and has a career record of 1,456345-2 (.808). The Sooners are coming off a sweep of Florida State in the Women’s College World Series Final to win their third straight national championship.

Here are some of the numbers behind the Sooners’ historic season:: 61 — With a near-perfect record of 61-1, the Sooners finished the season with the highest winning percentage of any team in NCAA Division I history.

Not only did Oklahoma break the NCAA record for consecutive wins, it continued to stay perfect through five games at the World Series. A target in the shape of back to back national titles was firmly planted on the Sooners’ backs even before the season started and it only got bigger as they marched towards the history books.

The record-breaking 48th win came in a dramatic, come-from-behind win over Clemson at the NCAA Norman Super Regionals in what will likely be the final official NCAA game that the Sooners will play at Marita Hynes Field.

“It’s more of the outside coming in and telling us what we are close to doing or what we need to do,” Gasso said. “It was really hard to kind of hunker down and say: Okay, we’re not listening, it doesn’t matter. We know what we’re here for, we know what we’re trying to do.”

The Sooners went on to win their five games at the WCWS by a combined score of 23-2. Closing out the season on a 53-game winning streak, the Sooners have posted winning streaks that rank No. 1, 3, 4 and 5 spots in NCAA history.

7 — Gasso’s seven national titles with the program ranks second all-time behind former Arizona coach Mike Candrea. Five of Gasso’s seven national titles have come in the last 10 seasons alone.

“It’s so crazy to see how our lives have changed,” Gasso said. “The fans in Oklahoma are absolutely fantastic. The fans are fantastic, but it starts to feel like you’re getting smothered a little bit, because everybody wants something. I heard them talking about it. For all of us it’s different.

“I just want to coach, I want to just be a regular... All of a sudden your life isn’t regular any more.”

The program is now third in the country in total national championships behind UCLA (12) and Arizona (eight). They’re also just the second program ever to win three consecutive titles, alongside UCLA from 198890.1 9 — With just 19 errors, Oklahoma also set an NCAA record for fewest errors during its national championship winning season.

Three of those errors came in the final two games alone, but it didn’t end up making a difference as the Sooners swept Florida State and allowed just a single run. The two errors the Sooners had in a 5-0 win in Game 1 tied a season high.

With a fielding percentage of .987, the 2023 Sooners rank second all-time in NCAA history, one spot ahead of the Sooners’ 2018 team.

Oklahoma led the country in shutouts (35) and outscored opponents by a combined score of 501-60. A big part of the Sooners’ defensive success has to be credited to the pitching staff.

The Sooners led the country in team ERA (0.96) behind a staff that is among the deepest in the country. But Oklahoma’s defensive dominance can also be credited to the athleticism the team has across the field.

Jayda Coleman put that on full display as she robbed the Seminoles of a three-run home run in the bottom of the third inning that could’ve completely changed the dynamic of a game that was decided by just two runs.

“Just taking a straight angle straight to the fence,” Coleman said about the catch. “You know it’s up. You’re going straight there to find it first. Then just trusting your teammates to tell you that the fence is right there.”