NCAA Softball Championship 2021: Dates, TV Schedule, Times, Bracket and More

The Oklahoma Sooners have one of the most prolific offenses in NCAA softball history. 

On Thursday, the No. 1 seed in the NCAA softball tournament starts its final weekend push to the national championship at the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City. 

The Sooners scored 63 runs in five games at regionals and super regionals, and they could feast on the unseeded James Madison Dukes in the tournament opener. 

James Madison is one of two unseeded teams to reach the Women's College World Series. The Georgia Bulldogs are the other team ranked outside the top 16. 

Oklahoma is looking for its fourth title since 2013. It may have to go through rival Oklahoma State and reigning champion UCLA to achieve that feat. 

UCLA, the No. 2 seed, beat Oklahoma in the 2019 final, and pitcher Rachel Garcia could win her second Most Outstanding Player award in a row if the Bruins take home the hardware.

Women's College World Series Bracket

Preview

Oklahoma leads Division I with a .421 team batting average. That is .72 percentage points better than second-place LIU. Arizona is the only other WCWS participant to have a top-10 team batting average. 

The Sooners' dominance at the plate makes them the team to beat entering Oklahoma City. They posted nine or more runs in three of their NCAA tournament contests and they have a plus-48 run differential in their five postseason victories. 

Oklahoma has four players that rank inside the top 15 of individual batting average, and Jocelyn Alo mashed 30 home runs to lead the country.

Alo, Tiare Jennings and Kinzie Hansen all hit over 20 home runs this season. Arizona's Dejah Mulipola is the only other WCWS participant with 20 or more dingers. 

Mulipola's Arizona teammate Jessie Harper will be on record watch as long as the Wildcats remain alive in the tournament.

Harper has 91 career home runs, which is four shy of the record held by Lauren Chamberlain, who played for Oklahoma from 2012 to 2015. 

To have a shot at the record, Harper and her teammates need to get past Alabama's Montana Fouts, who is fourth in the nation with 314 strikeouts. 

Fouts is also sixth in strikeouts-per-seven innings with 11.2, and she could be the key for the Crimson Tide to make a deep run in Oklahoma City. 

If Alabama and UCLA win their respective openers, we could be treated to a showdown between Fouts and Garcia with a semifinal berth on the line. 

In 2019, the Tide were one win away from setting up that showdown in the best-of-three championship series with the Bruins.

UCLA ended up beating Oklahoma in two games, and it rode its pitching to the title. The Bruins allowed more than three runs once in that tournament, and that was in the 5-4 victory that clinched the title. 

Oklahoma and UCLA could be on a collision course to face each other again given how dominant they have been. UCLA pitched three shutouts, two of which occurred in Games 2 and 3 of the super regional round after Virginia Tech sprung a surprise win in the opener. 

Statistics obtained from NCAA.com.