The eyes of the sports world were on the No. 1 seeded Oklahoma Sooner softball team as they won the national title June 10 with a 5-1 victory over No. 10-seeded Florida State.

It was the third national title for OU in the past five years. Both OU and FSU lost their opening games and had to battle back in the double-elimination tournament.

It was a fitting end to a season in which Oklahoma rewrote many of the national offense records.

“I knew we were good,” OU coach Patty Gasso said. “What got us here was really good leadership, a great staff, great strength coach, great hitting coach, great pitching coach. Just surrounded with some really hardworking people. I think these hardworking people had so much belief in this team and they felt it daily. We practiced hard. We practiced hard daily. They’ll tell you that. That’s how it all pays off. It’s just a lot of hard work and a lot of belief in our culture and our championship mindset and all that we put to work there.”

OU won the national title in 2000, 2013, 2016, 2017 and now 2021.

In 2021, OU set multiple single-season NCAA records, including team batting average, team slugging percentage, on-base percentage, home runs and runs scored, among others.

OU senior pitcher Giselle Juarez, who had a 5-0 record in the tournament, was voted the Most Valuable Player. In the final game, she allowed just one run on two hits, striking out seven and walking two for her second complete game in roughly 20 hours.

“I felt good,” said Juarez, who threw 218 total pitches roughly in her two-game championship sweep of the Seminoles (49-13-1). “I knew adrenaline was going to be going through (me). I mean, it was my last game here as a Sooner, and I just wanted to leave it all out there on the field for my teammates, and that’s what I did.”

Juarez caught a popup fly ball to end the game.

“It felt like slow motion,” Juarez said. “Just a surreal, awesome moment.”

Throughout the Womens College World Series, Juarez surrendered 16 hits, four runs, eight walks, and had 38 strikeouts in 31 1/3 innings.

“My heart just was overflowing with joy for her because it was a tough season for her,” Gasso said of Juarez. “She had a lot of things to prove after 2019 didn’t finish the way she wanted.

“She went through some really tenacious (biceps) surgery and rehab just to get back and play that last season. I’m just overwhelmed with joy for that young lady because she was very diligent and fought through it and didn’t have her best season. And she would tell you that, but I don’t know that it matters right now to her because she had that moment in the course of about seven days. It caps off her career in the most ultimate way you could ever think of.”

The All-Tournament team included Sooners Jocelyn Alo, Mackinzie Donihoo, Kinzie Hansen, Nicole  Mendes and Tiare Jennings.

Alo adding to her single-season school record by hitting her 34th home run of the season with a solo shot to left field in the bottom of the first inning.

Including the last two innings of Game Two, OU outscored the Seminoles 10-1 to close out the title series.

Not only did the Sooners set Division I single-season records for most home runs and runs scored, they achieved this in far fewer games than previous record-setters. Hawaii set the home run record of 158 in 2010 after playing 66 games, while Arizona’s record of 629 runs scored in 1995 came in 72 games.

“This tournament is big,” Gasso said. “It’s getting really, really big. It’s getting a lot of viewership.

“It’s getting talked about a lot. As coaches, we just want to do what’s best for this sport in a respectful way, and we just hope people are listening, whether it’s changing our schedules, giving us an extra day, [or] not having us play in late-evening games. Instant replay absolutely needs to be a part of this.

“It feels to me like this College World Series really exposed a lot of things, in a good way, that need to change to make our game better for our student-athletes.”