Oklahoma Sooners softball made historical past Thursday evening, defeating Florida State 3-1 within the Girls’s School World Collection finale.
The win clinched the Sooners’ seventh nationwide title, concluding a dominant 61-1 common season and increasing an NCAA Division I softball-record 53-game profitable streak. The triumph additionally prolonged a exceptional run of dominance by Oklahoma softball lately: The Sooners have now received the previous three Division I nationwide titles, half of a bigger run of 5 championships in seven seasons.
In NCAA historical past, Oklahoma joins elite firm. Simply 27 Division I groups have gone-back-to-back-to-back of their sport since 2000. Listed below are a few of the different groups which have achieved the feat.
Girls’s basketball
UConn (2013-16)
Underneath the management of Geno Auriemma, UConn girls’s basketball dominated a lot of the 2000s and 2010s, with maybe the Huskies’ most dominant stretch coming within the type of their solely four-peat. Enjoying a central position within the feat was present New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart, who enrolled as a freshman heading into the 2013 season. Stewart would go on to win 4 consecutive Remaining 4 Most Excellent Participant awards, three Naismith Participant of the Yr awards and two Wood awards. Included in UConn’s run of 4 championships had been two undefeated campaigns, 2014 and 2016.
Different three-peats: UConn (2002-04)
Soccer
North Dakota State (2011-15)
A constant FCS powerhouse, North Dakota State soccer is considered one of simply two packages (extra on the opposite later) to seem on this record twice. The Bison had been maybe on the peak of their dominance within the early 2010s. Shedding simply 4 video games in a five-year stretch of championship seasons, North Dakota State’s common margin of victory throughout their 5 postseason runs was 20.25 factors. The Bison’s excellence began on the sidelines, with eventual FBS head coaches Craig Bohl (Wyoming) and Chris Klieman (Kansas State) main the best way.
Different three-peats: North Dakota State (2017-19), Appalachian State (2005-07)
Males’s gymnastics
Stanford (2019-present)
Apart from Oklahoma softball, Stanford males’s gymnastics has the one lively streak of three or extra titles. Stanford has thrice crushed Oklahoma on the mat in its four-season, five-year stretch (there was no 2020 champion due to the COVID-19 pandemic), with the Sooners themselves previous Stanford’s run with a four-peat of titles from 2015 to 2018. Remarkably, 2012 was the final time Division I males’s gymnastics had a nationwide champion that wasn’t a part of a streak of at the least two consecutive victories.
Different three-peats: Oklahoma (2015-18)
Girls’s hockey
Minnesota-Duluth (2001-03)
The primary Division I three-peat to happen totally inside the twenty first century, Minnesota-Duluth’s title run got here within the first three NCAA girls’s hockey nationwide championship video games. After triumphing over St. Lawrence and Brown in 2001 and 2002, the Bulldogs’ most dramatic title was their third. Enjoying on residence ice, it will take two extra time durations to separate the Bulldogs and Harvard. Future Finnish worldwide Nora Tallus scored the winner to finish the three-peat. Among the many stars for Minnesota-Duluth throughout their run was Jenny Schmidgall-Potter, a four-time All-American and the main scorer in Bulldogs historical past.
Girls’s lacrosse
Northwestern (2005-09)
Northwestern followers aren’t any stranger to girls’s lacrosse success, with the Wildcats capturing the 2023 nationwide title only a month in the past. Northwestern’s best stretch of success, nevertheless, was a dominant run from 2005 to 2009. Underneath the management of coach Kelly Amonte Hiller, who was employed in 2002, the Wildcats loved a speedy rise to the highest of the ladies’s lacrosse world. Throughout the run, the Wildcats misplaced simply three video games within the five-year stretch. Hannah Nielsen led the best way on the sphere, capturing two Tewaaraton awards and graduating as Northwestern’s all-time and single-season chief in each assists and factors.
Males’s soccer
Stanford (2015-17)
One in all simply six groups in NCAA Division I historical past to win consecutive males’s soccer titles, Stanford achieved the feat with a three-peat from 2015 to 2017. The run of success had numerous widespread threads linking the seasons. MLS expertise led the traces — most notably together with a Hermann Trophy-winning season from Seattle Sounders staple Jordan Morris in 2015 and a mixed 48 objectives throughout the three-year stretch by future Portland Timber Foster Langsdorf and present Houston Dynamo ahead Corey Baird. The protection was rock stable, with the Cardinal by no means permitting greater than 15 objectives per 12 months. Maybe the largest fixed was a aptitude for the dramatic, with seven of the workforce’s 15 postseason victories within the span coming both in extra time or on penalties.
Males’s tennis
Virginia (2015-17)
NCAA Division I tennis has steadily been dominated by a trio of California faculties. USC, Stanford and UCLA account for 68% of the game’s nationwide titles within the NCAA period. However previously decade, Virginia has exploded onto the scene as a powerhouse in its personal proper. Claiming their first title in 2013, the Cavaliers ripped off three consecutive championships from 2015 to 2017, beating Oklahoma twice and North Carolina as soon as. Virginia could have an opportunity to repeat the achievement subsequent spring, having taken residence each the 2022 and 2023 nationwide titles.
Different three-peats: USC (2009-2012)
Girls’s tennis
Stanford (2004-06)
No different faculty has come near matching Stanford’s prowess in girls’s tennis, with the Cardinal boasting a Division I-high 20 titles. The following-closest workforce has seven. Stanford has had a number of stretches of dominance throughout the game’s 40-plus years of NCAA sanctioning (together with a run of six consecutive titles within the late Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties), however its most up-to-date streak got here within the type of a three-peat within the early 2000s. The Cardinal have not slowed since, capturing 5 extra titles since that run.
Girls’s volleyball
Penn State (2007-2010)
The Nittany Lions dominated the collegiate volleyball world for a four-year stretch, breaking a number of data within the course of. The 2008 Penn State season, particularly, was among the finest in NCAA volleyball historical past. That workforce did not simply go 38-0 — it did not lose a single particular person set all common season, both. Penn State completed the 12 months 114-2 in particular person units. To not be outdone, the 2009 squad went undefeated en path to the title as nicely. In 2010, Penn State confronted a steeper climb than prior years. Its 109-match win streak was snapped in nonconference play towards Stanford. The Lions misplaced greater than 3 times in convention play for the primary time since 2002. However they rallied come event time, dropping only one set in postseason play en path to a fourth consecutive nationwide title, concluding NCAA Division I volleyball’s solely four-peat.
Males’s water polo
USC (2008-2013)
Of all these packages, USC water polo boasts the longest streak of titles. The boys’s water polo Division I nationwide championship has been handed across the state of California since its creation as an NCAA title sport in 1969. All seven of the groups that may boast males’s water polo titles hail from the Golden State. Whereas USC does not have essentially the most complete titles — an honor belonging to defending champion Cal — it has essentially the most dominant stretch of anybody program. Following back-to-back title recreation losses by the hands of the Golden Bears in 2006-07, the Trojans ripped off six consecutive titles, with championship recreation wins over 4 totally different faculties (Stanford, UCLA, Cal and Pacific).
