Well, the women's college world series set to get underway Thursday of this week and of the eight teams in the field.

Two out of the big 12 and both, of course, in the state of Oklahoma, the Sooners and the Cowgirls are in the Women's College World Series this year.

By the way, they're both there again for a second straight year.

How about that?

I'm Pete Mundo on Heartland College Sports.

We now welcome on and say hi to Brian Clinton.

If you read our site, Brian is not just our go-to guy on softball, but to me, one of the best in the business of covering this sport.

And we are thrilled to have him here on the show.

Of course, he does his own podcast called the Portal podcast as well.

So take a listen to that. It's not just about softball. It's really just about whatever's

happening in the transfer portal, recruiting. That's also his bread and butter. So find that

wherever you get your podcast. Brian, let's start off with this. Oklahoma, obviously the team to beat, but let's start off with you having to make the case against Oklahoma winning the Women's College World Series this year.

Well, if you're going to look at Oklahoma and where they've struggled, there's not very many things, but if you look at the list here, the first thing that

sticks out is Alex Taraco, one of Oklahoma's three-headed monsters there in the pitching

staff, struggled last week, and she struggled in regionals as well.

And so that's something to look at, but you clearly still have Jordy Ball and

Nicole May there in the circle. But if I look at the field, there are certainly teams out here

that can take down Oklahoma. Tennessee being the first that I look at, they've looked like they're playing on a different

level here over the last couple of weeks.

We saw them dominate a good Texas team, and that's not something that needs to be overlooked.

Texas clearly has enough talent to be the number two team here in the Big 12 this year,

and Tennessee just kind of had their way with them.

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