Six Things to Know About the 2024 WCWS

Top Stories Graham Hays - May 28, 2024

The field is set for the Women’s College World Series. As Alabama, Duke, Florida, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Texas and UCLA make their way to Oklahoma City, D1Softball presents six ways of thinking about the softball to come at Hall of Fame Stadium.

Thursday’s WCWS Schedule

• No. 6 UCLA vs. No. 14 Alabama, 12 p.m. ET, ESPN
• No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 10 Duke, 2:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
• No. 1 Texas vs. No. 8 Stanford, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN
• No. 4 Florida vs. No. 5 Oklahoma State, 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN

The WCWS that never happened may determine this year’s champion

Michigan was practicing on March 12, 2020, when Carol Hutchins had to step away from practice to join a call in which she learned college sports were shutting down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a pleasant, sunny day, conditions never guaranteed in Ann Arbor at that time of year, so she paused when she walked back out to the field. For a few minutes, she just sat and observed from afar, listening to the chatter and bat pings that provide the soundtrack of spring on fields around the country. She wanted to soak it in because she wasn’t sure how long it would be until she heard it again. 

Four years later, college softball’s winningest all-time coach is retired. That’s one indication of how the present gradually becomes the past. The final out in this year’s Women’s College World Series will mark another milestone, as the last of the players who saw the 2020 college season end so abruptly will complete the additional eligibility granted by the NCAA (technically, a handful of sixth-year players may extend the era into the 2025 season). 

Additional eligibility, especially combined with the transfer portal, dramatically reshaped rosters and player development over the past four seasons. And there is every reason to think the lost 2020 WCWS will play a large role in determining one more champion for an unprecedented era.

Every team in this year’s field has at least one player who was playing college softball when the 2020 season shut down (Florida’s Skylar Wallace and UCLA’s Madison Pacini go back to 2019). In all, 25 players active in 2020, often colloquially referred to as “COVID seniors,” are part of WCWS rosters. 

Below are the total number of players who were around in 2020, the combined WAR they’ve contributed this season and each team’s WAR leader from among the old-timers. 

Team	"COVID Seniors"	WAR	Leader
Oklahoma	6	14.86	Kelly Maxwell (3.62)
UCLA	6	13.04	Maya Brady (4.46)
Oklahoma State	3	11.66	Lexi Kilfoyl (6.1)
Florida	3	8.67	Skylar Wallace (6.86)
Alabama	3	7.67	Kayla Beaver (5.02)
Texas	2	6.04	Joley Mitchell (3.19)
Duke	1	2.16	Gisele Tapia (2.16)
Stanford	1	1.38	Kaitlyn Lim (1.38)

The Pac-12 era is over in more ways than you might imagine 

Georgia and LSU fans will understandably disagree, but this year’s World Series needed UCLA and Stanford to make the trip to Oklahoma City. In the Pac-12’s final farewell to the sport it once ruled, the event is better for having the Bruins on hand to pursue their record 13th title in the NCAA era and the Cardinal their first—thereby becoming the sixth Pac-12 school to lift the trophy. 

The highly regional nature of early NCAA tournaments meant the Pac (10 or 12) at first rarely overran the WCWS with quantity. When the event moved to Oklahoma City in 1990, Arizona and UCLA were the only Pac representatives. The conference just dominated title game representation. But as the 20th century gave way to the 21st century, the idea of the “unofficial Pac-12 tournament” took on new meaning. Not only were the Wildcats and Bruins playing for the title as often as not, but Cal, Washington and others became regulars. In 1999, the Pac-12 had five teams reach the WCWS. No conference would match that until the SEC in 2015. But for most of the first decade of this century, with Cal, Arizona State and Washington all joining the list of national champions, four teams a year became commonplace. 

The West Coast domination didn’t stop there. Michigan’s 2005 title is rightly celebrated as a turning point in the college game’s nationwide growth. And Hutch’s Wolverines had plenty of homegrown Midwestern talent, from home run hero Samantha Findlay to Jennie Ritter. But even that team that represented the rest of the country had six players who originally came from Pac-12 states. 

Long Beach’s own Patty Gasso used a California pipeline to help build a dynasty in Oklahoma, as Tim Walton did in building Florida into a national power and eventual champion. Rosters from Maine to Missouri often featured as many Californians as locals. 

But even as UCLA and Stanford try for one final Pac-12 curtain call at Hall of Fame Stadium, the rosters in this year’s World Series reveal a landscape long since altered. 

As ever, UCLA’s roster is almost entirely homegrown. A private university with national reach, Stanford is less so but still largely comprised of players from Pac-12 states. And Oklahoma retains its strong ties to California travel ball, in particular. But Alabama, Duke, Florida, Oklahoma State and Texas have a mere nine players from Pac-12 softball states between them. Oklahoma State has as many players from the United Kingdom, admittedly by way of a childhood spent mostly in Texas, as it does from California.

Just as the WCWS field includes UCLA in the Pac-12’s final season, it also includes Duke. Blue Devils head coach Marissa Young was one of those Californians who went to play for Hutch in chilly Ann Arbor, setting the stage for the title that some of her former teammates won in 2005. But the foundation of the first Duke team to reach the World Series, the program she built from scratch to suit a modern world, includes six Floridians and as many players from Indiana and Connecticut as from California. 

Below are the number of players for each team from current Pac-12 softball states (Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Utah, excluding Colorado—sorry, Korbe Otis). 

Team	Players from P12 States	% of Roster
UCLA	22	91.7
Stanford	14	63.6
Oklahoma	9	42.9
Florida	3	16.7
Duke	2	10.5
Alabama	2	9.1
Texas	1	4.8
Oklahoma State	1	4.2

Texas and Oklahoma are both playing for history

On behalf of the other six teams with a vested interest in the upcoming proceedings, it’s worth pointing out that chalk doesn’t hold up very well under the Oklahoma sun. As likely as a third meeting between Texas and Oklahoma may look, following the Longhorns winning two out of three in the regular season and the Sooners returning the favor to win the Big 12 tournament, the World Series championship round rarely brings together the top two seeds. 

In fact, since the tournament expanded to include the super regional round in 2005, No. 1 played No. 2 for the national championship just once—when No. 2 UCLA beat No. 1 Oklahoma in 2019. That was also the last time the Sooners were eliminated from the postseason. 

Yet even after Texas made hard work out of another rivalry in the super regional, winning back-to-back one-run decisions after dropping the opener, it’s mighty tempting to bet against history. These still look like the two best teams, the two most complete teams in the field. 

They’re the top two teams in then nation in on-base percentage and the only two teams that rank in the top 10 in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and ERA. We’ve already seen how the postseason exposes a team’s Achilles’ heel. Florida State had a good offense, but the pitching that was a question mark all season couldn’t handle Oklahoma. Tennessee had great pitching, but the offense that stumbled down the stretch ran aground against Alabama. 

Texas’ defense comes perilously close to meeting that description. The Longhorns rank 118th in fielding percentage. While not the most meaningful stat, the past 10 national champions ranked an average of seventh in the nation in fielding percentage. At No. 20 in 2019, UCLA was the only team in that run that wasn’t ranked in the top 10.

Florida is a prime example of a program that got to the World Series often enough but didn’t start winning titles until Tim Walton started putting a great deal of emphasis on recruiting defense. It’s not disqualifying—statistically speaking, Alabama wasn’t a great defensive team in 2012. But it’s, well, an Achilles’ heel. 

Still, the Longhorns and Sooners have the deepest lineups and the most options in the circle. They are the teams best equipped to avoid defeat, but perhaps more importantly, the teams best equipped to deal with a loss in the double-elimination format. 

Moving from the analytical to the lyrical, a championship series between these two feels right. 

As the world has heard all too many times by now, Oklahoma’s Rylie Boone, Jayda Coleman, Kinzie Hansen, Tiare Jennings and Nicole May can become the first “class” (Hansen and Boone are in their fifth years) to win four consecutive NCAA softball championships. They’ve gone from juggernaut to almost (almost) relatable in their mortality—losing during the opening weekend in their new stadium, losing the series against Texas, facing the pressure of a fourth title but still, more often than not, playing to the nearly impossible standard they and their former teammates set for themselves. 

And if seeding holds, it’s top-ranked Texas that stands in the way of history—and on the verge of unwanted history if it falls short. With another exit in their eighth NCAA WCWS appearances, the Longhorns would join Oklahoma State (if it doesn’t win) and Tennessee in the 0-for-8 club in the NCAA era. 

Oklahoma City is still a place where the hot hand can carry the week

Asked during Game 3 of the Gainesville Super Regional about his decision to start freshman Keagan Rothrock for the third day in a row, Florida head coach Tim Walton said was his plan going into the weekend. In other words, there wasn’t a choice at all. It was Rothrock’s ball. 

That’s a decidedly old-school sentiment from a coach who has been anything but stuck in his ways. Walton reached the World Series more than a decade ago with Stacey Nelson throwing close to 400 innings a season. And he also won titles splitting innings almost equally between two and even three pitchers. He works with what he has. And this year, he has an ace. 

He’s not alone, at least when it comes to sticking with the hot hand this postseason. 

This year’s WCWS bracket offers an interesting contrast in pitching workloads. For the bottom half of the bracket, the postseason has led to a concentration of innings. Florida’s Rothrock, Stanford’s NiJaree Canady and Oklahoma State’s Lexi Kilfoyl have all throw at least 70 percent of their respective team’s innings through the regional and super regional rounds. Even Texas, one of the models of the modern diversified staff, leaned heavily on Mac Morgan to survive its super regional against Texas A&M. 

Below are the workloads for the top two pitchers (or three, in Texas’ case) on each team. It’s initially sorted by regular season workload, but you can sort by any category. 

Pitcher	Team	% Reg. Season IP	% Postseason IP	% Change
Keagan Rothrock	Florida	57.2	73.9	+16.7
NiJaree Canady	Stanford	44.4	80.0	+35.6
Lexi Kilfoyl	Oklahoma State	41.1	84.8	+43.7
Regan Krause	Stanford	36.2	16.3	-19.9
Ava Brown	Florida	30.9	26.1	-4.8
Teagan Kavan	Texas	30.0	31.0	+1.0
Ivy Rosenbery	Oklahoma State	29.7	15.2	-14.5
Citlaly Gutierrez	Texas	25.0	12.7	-12.3
Mac Morgan	Texas	23.2	48.4	+25.2

If old school is making a comeback in that half of the draw, the top half tells a different story. Look at Alabama, where freshman Jocelyn Briski solidified her rising star with her work in the first two rounds. Is Kayla Beaver still going to get the ball against UCLA? Absolutely, the Central Arkansas transfer has been a godsend for a Crimson Tide team that struggled to score all year. But after Briski aced her postseason debut in regionals and then came up clutch in the winner-take-all finale in Knoxville in the super regional, Patrick Murphy has the luxury to respond quickly if either pitcher struggles in OKC.

Below are the same numbers for this half of the bracket, revealing the distribution of labor. Even as Oklahoma has consolidated around Kelly Maxwell and Nicole May in its admittedly limited postseason innings, Maxwell still had a lighter postseason workload than any other “ace” in the WCWS.

Pitcher	Team	% Reg. Season IP	% Postseason IP	% Change
Kaitlyn Terry	UCLA	50.7	55.6	+4.9
Kayla Beaver	Alabama	47.4	52.1	+3.7
Taylor Tinsley	UCLA	41.0	44.4	+3.4
Jala Wright	Duke	37.7	42.6	+4.9
Kelly Maxwell	Oklahoma	33.3	43.8	+10.5
Cassidy Curd	Duke	27.3	50.4	+23.1
Jocelyn Briski	Alabama	22.9	45.8	+22.9
Nicole May	Oklahoma	20.6	37.5	+16.9

Oklahoma State and Florida aced the portal 

Per 6-4-3 Charts, 13 players had 100 or more plate appearances with two strikes this season. It’s an impressive list, including a handful of All-Americans and conference players of the year. Yet 12 of those 13 payers combined to hit .246 with two strikes. No individual among that dozen hit better than .299 in those high-leverage moments. 

Korbe Otis is 13th player. She hit .456 with two strikes (with a .536 OBP and .722 SLG).

If you wanted to explain a quintessential Florida hitter to someone, you could do a lot worse than just handing them vide of Otis. She’s patient, among WCWS leaders at 4.46 pitches per plate appearance and leads Division I in walks. She has power and speed. She’s a relentless and a bit of a perfectionist. She’s a Florida hitter. Even if she happened to be a Louisville hitter until this season. 

Otis is worth singling out because she’s a marvel to watch. But also because she, Skylar Wallace and Jocelyn Erickson may represent the most successful transfer work in the country. Knowing he had to refresh his roster, Walton trusted traditional high school recruiting for his pitching and used the portal to flank Wallace with a pair of All-American-caliber transfers. 

It’s a similar story at Oklahoma State. A portal master since its inception, Kenny Gajewski outdid himself this season by bringing in mid-major talents Caroline Wang and Jilyen Poullard—exactly the sort of something-to-prove personalities needed as he tried to reset after heavy graduation losses and a turbulent offseason. Of course, like Wallace at Florida, it didn’t hurt that the portal had already provided the cornerstone in Lexi Kilfoyl. 

Love it or hate it, the portal is reality. Below you’ll find the number of transfers on each WCWS team, as well as the total WAR those players provided this season. (Junior college and lower division transfers have long been part of the roster-building landscape, so this only includes Division I-to-Division I transfers—whose increasing frequency is the new variable.) 

Team	Transfers	2024 WAR	Leader
Oklahoma State	8	18.73	Lexi Kilfoyl (6.1)
Oklahoma	7	17.32	Alyssa Brito (5.01)
Alabama	6	8.58	Kayla Beaver (5.02)
UCLA	5	7.55	Sharlize Palacios (3.93)
Florida	4	18.88	Skylar Wallace (6.86)
Texas	4	11.05	Joley Mitchell (3.19)
Duke	3	5.99	Jala Wright (4.85)
Stanford	1	3.91	Taryn Kern (3.91)

No one means more to a team than NiJaree Canady 

A year after the anomaly of a World Series without any of the three finalists for USA Softball Player of the Year, all three finalists made it to Oklahoma City: Texas catcher Reese Atwood, Stanford pitcher NiJaree Canady and Oklahoma State pitcher Lexi Kilfoyl. 

Any of the three would be worthy winners, Atwood a run production machine for the team that dethroned Oklahoma in the Big 12 and the pitchers both dominant against difficult schedules. 

Just don’t expect the announcement of this year’s winner to settle the debate about the best—or most valuable—player in Oklahoma City. Talent is always concentrated in the World Series, but even by the standards of the event, it feels as if every team has an argument this year. 

WAR is only measure, of course. But using it as a means to illustrate the depth of talent on hand, more than half of the top 20 in WAR among Power Five conference teams will be in OKC. 

That includes Canady, who led all players in WAR, as calculated by 6-4-3 Charts, and Florida’s Skylar Wallace, who wasn’t among USA Softball finalists but led the nation in offensive WAR. 

It also includes Florida catcher Jocelyn Erickson, who additionally led the nation in defensive runs saved (and Wallace, who led all infielders in defensive runs saved). 

Other measures add additional context. Duke’s Claire Davidson, who gave up pitching and emerged as the ACC Player of the Year, leads all WCWS players in weighted on-base average and weighted runs created, statistical measures of a player’s total offensive contributions. 

And whether it’s Oklahoma’s Tiare Jennings and Jayda Coleman, UCLA’s Maya Brady or Alabama’s Kayla Beaver, every team has a seat at the table in this discussion. 

Still, when it comes to value—not just pure talent and production but the degree to which that performance is responsible for the team’s success—Canady may be in a league of her own. 

Below is each team’s WAR leader, as well as her lead over the next-best WAR on her team. 

Team	Transfers	WAR	Leads Team By	Next
Stanford	NiJaree Canady	7.81	+3.90	Taryn Kern
Alabama	Kayla Beaver	5.02	+2.74	Kenleigh Cahalan
Oklahoma State	Lexi Kilfoyl	6.1	+2.46	Caroline Wang
Florida	Skylar Wallace	6.86	+1.07	Jocelyn Erickson
Duke	Claire Davidson	5.56	+0.71	Jala Wright
Texas	Reese Atwood	5.13	+0.58	Mia Scott
UCLA	Maya Brady	4.46	+0.53	Sharlize Palacios
Oklahoma	Tiare Jennings	5.2	+0.10	Jayda Coleman