No. 7 Softball Featured on ESPN.com

NORMAN, Okla. - The No. 7 Oklahoma softball team is on a roll after sweeping all five games this past weekend at the Palm Springs Classic, including No. 16 Cal and No. 6 Oregon State.

The Sooners own a 16-0 record and are one of only three teams left in the country with a perfect record. No. 1 Tennessee (15-0) and No. 3 Alabama (16-0) are the others.

The Sooner offense has also taken off in 2007 and is leading the nation in runs scored with 8.5 per game. Graham Hays followed the Sooners in Palm Springs and has featured Oklahoma in his column on ESPN.com this Tuesday. Below is an excerpt from the article:

Graham Hays, ESPN.com
CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. -- A billboard next to one of the roads leading to the Big League Dreams softball complex near Palm Springs, host of the past weekend's Palm Springs Classic, offered a rather existential assessment of the path the Oklahoma Sooners hope to follow to the Women's College World Series.

The billboard, ostensibly advertising a local auto dealership, featured a picture of a convertible with its roof closed under the label of "summer" and the same car with its roof open under the label of "winter." For anyone who has ever owned a snow shovel, it's a somewhat counterintuitive message. But in the desert, where summer temperatures climb upward of 110 degrees and winter boasts the mild climate snowbirds seek, it just makes sense to flip conventional wisdom on its ear.

You make the most of what you've got, even if that means taking a nontraditional approach.

So it was for the Sooners, who scored 39 runs en route to a perfect 5-0 record during the tournament, including wins against Pac-10 powers Oregon State and Cal. With that showing, the Sooners improved to 16-0 on the season and join Tennessee and Alabama as the only remaining unbeaten teams in the top 25.

In a sport seemingly ruled by pitchers and where aces are the star attractions at the World Series in Oklahoma City each June, coach Patty Gasso's Sooners are trying to prove there is a place for offense in the championship race. Seven of Oklahoma's wins this season, including an 11-3 rout of No. 16 Cal on Saturday, have come via the run rule.

To read the rest of the article, please visit:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2781212

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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