S P O RT S
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ocelyn Alo is the all-time home run leader in college softball history. The Sooner Super Senior set the record in her home state of Hawaii on a deep shot late into the Hawaiian night. The record-setting blast occurred following an 8-game stretch after tying the record where teams constantly found ways to pitch around the Sooner slugger. When all was said and done, that magical moment on the field where Alo played her final high school game created an incredible moment for the Sooners, the sport of softball, female athletics and the entire state of Hawaii. This is the story of home run 96 and the moments leading up to the record and beyond.
A LEGEND IS BORN Jocelyn Alo burst onto the scene as a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. The buzz had started to build before even playing her first game. “As a pitcher, she probably hits the ball harder than anyone I’ve ever faced,” said Sooner ace Paige Parker of Alo during the preseason media day in 2018 prior to Alo’s first season with the Sooners. “It’s scary how strong that girl is,” Shay Knighten added. “I don’t want to throw to her, you guys can,” commented Sooner pitcher Paige Lowery. Alo followed up the preseason hype hitting her first home run on a blast against Weber State in the fifth inning of her first collegiate game. When the freshman season wrapped, Alo had tied the single-season freshman record for home runs. “I really did surprise myself,” Alo said this week. “I wasn’t expecting to have the season that I had. It’s a lot to take in sometimes, but you’ve just got to live in the moment.” But there was a moment early in the 2018 season that caught the eye of Sooner legendary slugger Lauren Chamberlain, the previous holder of the record for most career homeruns at 95. During the Mary Nutter Classic in 2018, Chamberlain met for the first time an admittedly star struck Alo. The comparisons had already started between Chamberlain and Alo, but Jocelyn made it clear she was out to be the best version of herself. “We talked about how badly she wanted to be the one and only Jocelyn,” Chamberlain recalled. “Not the next Lauren and how important it was for her to write her own story and create her own narrative around this entire thing. “I knew from the jump that it was going to be her.”
Photos by: Mark Doescher
THE EXPERIENCE OF CHASING THE RECORD
28 April 2022
Alo followed up her breakthrough freshman season with a frustrating sophomore campaign where she hit just 13 homeruns. After hitting eight in the first 24 games of 2020, the season was shut down due to COVID-19. But after winning her first World Series ring to cap an incredible run in 2021 where Alo hit a career-high 34 home runs, she quickly made the decision to return to school for her COVID year as a super senior. Entering the 2022 season with 88 career home runs, it was not a question of if she would break the record, but when. It was a much different experience for Sooner head coach Patty Gasso than the one she went through when Lauren Chamberlain was chasing the record eight seasons earlier.
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