‘They deserved better’: Wichita State softball earns OU’s respect after NCAA regional
What if this Wichita State softball team wasn’t sent to the No. 1 overall seed’s regional this postseason?
What if the best, most explosive Shockers team in program history that crushed records, piled up the ranked wins and swept the American Athletic Conference championships were instead set to maybe Stillwater or Columbia or Fayetteville — or practically anywhere else other than Norman?
WSU would have relished the chance to take on the Oklahoma Sooners — in an NCAA Super Regional or the College World Series in Oklahoma City, both of which were realistic goals for the team until the NCAA selection committee made the perplexing decision to have WSU meet OU in the opening weekend.
So instead of what WSU believed should have been its deepest postseason run in school history, the Shockers had to settle for respect alone after sweeping an SEC opponent in Texas A&M and pushing OU to the brink on Saturday before falling to the Sooners again, 24-7, in Sunday’s regional championship game.
“You get another opportunity potentially playing in a different regional and it’s a different story,” WSU coach Kristi Bredbenner said.
“We can’t do anything about it now. I think we did the best we could possibly do and made a name for ourselves and showed people we are a legit program and we can go out there and compete with teams that have a great chance of winning the women’s College World Series.”
Bredbenner said she felt like the Shockers proved their were a “World Series-caliber” team and OU’s legendary head coach, Patty Gasso, agreed following two battles against WSU on the weekend.
“Wichita State, I’m going to say this again, no one is listening, they shouldn’t be at this regional,” OU coach Patty Gasso said this weekend. “They shouldn’t and it makes me sick that they were because they’re too good. They deserved better than to come to the number one seed. They really did.”
In both games against OU, the Shockers took early leads. On Saturday, WSU led 2-1 after four innings and had the go-ahead run at the plate in the top of the seventh inning of an eventual 7-5 loss. On Sunday, WSU forced OU to cycle through three pitchers in the first inning and took a 4-0 lead before WSU’s own pitching wore down.
Oklahoma has allowed more than five runs in a game just a total of six times this season — two of those occurrences came this weekend against WSU.
“I think they could’ve gone to any place in the country and pushed anybody the same way they pushed us, probably even further,” Gasso said. “I respect them and I feel like they made us better this weekend.”
“Coming from coach Gasso, that’s an enormous compliment,” WSU senior Madison Perrigan said. “I hope the NCAA selection committee reevaluates next year and gives (non-power conference teams), the underdogs a little bit more of a chance to get through.”
Unlike in college basketball, where the selection committee attempts to place the lowest-rated No. 2 seed with the strongest No. 1 seed, college softball seeds the top 16 teams that host regionals and the rest is up for interpretation.
Since softball is not the revenue-generator that basketball is, teams are often assigned to regionals within driving distance to save on travel costs. That method punished the Shockers, which were expecting a favorable assignment with a No. 24 RPI rating and were instead slotted in Norman — likely because they were a short, three-hour bus ride away.
“That’s the part that’s disappointing about this,” Bredbenner said. “Hopefully there’s some live-and-learn from this and the committee looks at some decisions they made and doesn’t make Wichita State drive every year. Yeah, we’ve got a bunch of schools around us that we can drive to, but they’re damn good and we shouldn’t have to go to the best all the time.”
There will be no more duel between freshman Addison Barnard (22) and Perrigan (21) for the program’s single-season record for home runs. No more bombs from Ryleigh Buck or Lauren Mills or Neleigh Herring. No more first-pitch swinging hits by Sydney McKinney or defensive gems from Kaylee Huecker and Bailee Nickerson. No more battles in the circle from Bailey Lange or Caitlin Bingham or Erin McDonald.
Bredbenner cried for the first time in front of her team when addressing them on the field following their final game together. The tears flowed because everyone wearing black and yellow realized how special this team was and even if the what-if’s might haunt them temporarily, just how much they accomplished together.
WSU finished with a 41-13-1 record, becoming just the second team in school history to cross the 40-win mark and second to reach an NCAA Regional final. The Shockers won the AAC regular-season title for the first time, then backed it up with their first AAC tournament title. They broke six school records on offense, most impressively upping the single-season home record from 59 to 103. It will go down as the most successful season in school history.
The mantra this season from the players who are departing — Perrigan, Buck, Lange, Huecker and Nickerson included — has been to leave the program better than how they found it.
And for that answer, they didn’t need a committee.
“You’re going to have a powerhouse in Kansas,” Perrigan said, as if she was speaking it into existence. “And it’s going to be the Shockers.”
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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