OKLAHOMA CITY — "Boomer!" "Sooner!"

The chants went back and forth in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 2 of the NCAA Softball Women’s College World Series best-of-three championship series at USA Softball Hall of Fame Complex on Thursday.

That was the deafening noise of the chant of the fight song for the University of Oklahoma echoing across all of the stadium, as the Sooners' softball team closed in on a historic three-peat as NCAA national champions.

As I embarked on covering the Women's College World Series for the first time, I was warned the first two days about how much of a home-field advantage the Sooners held with the championship series being played less than 20 miles from Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located.

While the Sooner faithful were loud both Wednesday and Thursday, it was at that moment that I had the understanding of how much of the announced attendance of 12,195 of the 13,000-capacity stadium favored the team in Crimson and Cream.

Game of inches: FSU softball sees season end against No. 1 Oklahoma in WCWS champ series

Talking to FSU players' parents, they made it clear they'd prefer the World Series to move around, instead of remaining in OKC, to the advantage of OU.

But in the talks, there was no consensus about any other ballpark in America is built to host a tournament like this.

Also, college baseball plays its World Series annually in Omaha, Nebraska. The University of Nebraska has not been able to quite figure it out as the Sooners have as a program. But if the Huskers did, would the calls for that begin as well?

Personally, I think moving venues doesn't make sense unless you can find something that is close to the venue OKC has. I heard it dubbed many times as the "Mecca of softball."

The city is considered the "home of softball" because it has hosted USA softball since 1996. The WCWS has been hosted at the Hall of Fame every year since 1990, except for 1996 when Columbus, Georgia hosted it ahead of the Olympics that year were hosted at Golden Park.

According to officials, the WCWS brings in more than $25 million of revenue for the OKC metropolitan area. The contract between OKC and the NCAA runs through 2035.

"This is a great environment, (Wednesday) got us a little bit," FSU head coach Lonni Alameda said to Holly Rowe during an on-air ESPN interview in the top of the fourth inning. ... "Not many people get this where the state of Oklahoma is here in town to celebrate their team. But it's really special and as long as we can keep looking it as they love softball and they are not against us.

"That's what we talked about this morning, just play some softball and enjoy that everyone loves softball here."

According to Sports Business Journal's Austin Karp, ratings from the WCWS Championship Series were up this year.

The OU-FSU two-game series averaged 1.59 million viewers on ESPN, a slight increase from 1.58 million in last year's OU-Texas matchup.

The Sooners' clinching win had a viewership of 1.86 million, which was up from 1.74 million on ESPN2 last year.

The 14 WCWS games - broadcast on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 - averaged just under 1.1 million viewers, which is up from 1.04 million in 2022 a 6% increase, which happened over 16 games.

Tennessee-Oklahoma on June 2 ranks as the most-watched game thus far with 1.37 million viewers on ABC, while Monday’s FSU-Tennessee semifinal was second with 1.32 million viewers on ESPN.

College softball is rapidly growing. Now is not the time for a devaluation of the product with an inferior location for the biggest stage.

Florida State softball culture and the puzzle pieces

At the FSU tailgate at South Track of Remington Park Wednesday, Sherry Harding - the mother of FSU third baseman Kalei Harding - said that Kalei told her something is special about the FSU team celebrating its 40th year.

"She said she already won with Team 40," Sherry said. "She has won. In her mind, she has won. She's here where she wants to be, doing what she loves. She's won."

In each sport, only one team can win each season. So while winning the championship is the ultimate goal, keeping perspective is also important.

The positive mindset about where the program is and where it's going starts at the top.

"CoachA honestly. You talk about culture, CoachA has built that," FSU ace Kathryn Sandercock said. "It's just such a special thing to be a part of. You don't get experiences like this in your life. Coming in as a freshman, we were talking about it before, you just don't get it. You don't get it until you really get it. It's so much bigger than softball. It changes you as a human being.

"I have changed so much as a human being. It's so much more than a sport. But just the family aspect, the living of the core values. We don't write it down on signs, put it up in the locker room. We really live it. We talk about it. We hold each other accountable to it.

"I mean, it just forces you to grow and it forces you to be better. I have become so much better and I have grown into somebody that I'm so proud to be. I am just so ready for this next part of my life. I'm just so grateful for Florida State to have spent five years."

The Seminoles bounced back from the tough Tallahassee Regional loss to Mississippi State in 2022 following the World Series loss to Oklahoma in 2021.

FSU has reached the championship series in three of the last five seasons it has been played, including winning its first National Championship in 2018, led by Alameda.

"I really like the analogy that a successful team is like a big puzzle piece. You're trying to create that big picture. If you don't take care of your own individual piece and all the edges and the curves, you have to fill in where other people don't," FSU sophomore catcher Michaela Edenfield said.

"Being able to open up and learn from that year, being able to use it into this year, has been really big for us individually.

"Really, really proud of team 40. I'm glad that we had all the puzzle pieces together, for sure. I think this team is special. I hope you guys saw the big picture."

Historically great OU team

One thing that needs to be harped on is sometimes you don't lose, you just get beat by the better team. This is what I think happened to FSU. The Seminoles were a great team in 2023, winning 58 wins - the most since the 2018 season when the Seminoles won the national championship.

OU was just a historically great team, finishing with the best mark ever in softball at 61-1 and breaking the NCAA record with 53 straight wins.

Oklahoma’s .367 batting average was the top in the nation, well ahead of second-place UCLA (.336). The Sooners also led the way with 115 home runs (1.89 per game) and also had the best team ERA at 0.96.

They were also fundamentally sound on defense and made highlight plays, as highlighted by Jayda Coleman's home run rob of Harding in the third inning Thursday.

Alameda was asked about the historical context of the team postgame.

"It'll tough to say because they've had great ones, they've been great different ways," Alameda said comparing OU teams. "I would say this probably lineup was a little bit deeper lineup-wise as tougher outs. They may have more power in the lineup in '21. I think we had a little deeper pitching probably in '21. Jordy (Bahl) was pretty good.

"It's hard to say. They play the game hard. I think the one thing Oklahoma does, and we all try to do, is they keep getting better every year. What they were in championships a couple years ago, they're a better version of themselves now. We all have to do that. As coaches we have to go back and figure out how do we get better to get back here.

"The game is changing. The athletes are changing. The way we train changes. That's one thing they've done a really good job of, they've gotten into analytics at a high level and they use it. I just think they're tough to beat.

"Again, a lot of fun to go against."

Looking ahead to 2024

FSU has a lot of returning talent next season, especially on the offensive side, led by Edenfield, Harding, Kaley Mudge, Jahni Kerr and Devyn Flaherty, among a few others.

It loses star shortstop Josie Muffley and first baseman Mack Leonard but the talent returning is great enough there to make up for the losses.

In the circle, it returns freshman sensation Makenna Reid and transfer Allison Royalty. But replacing Sandercock and her 1.12 ER in 193 innings will not be easy.

"You look at what our returning pitching staff is right now, it's going to be very young," Alameda said. "We have some offense coming back, they'll know what this feeling is like, but we'll have to endure figuring out what the pitching staff can do.

"That's probably going to be something we figure out how we do that February, March, to be able to bring it together for another run at the end of the season."

Jaysoni Beachum (3B), Angelee Bueno (1B), Ashtyn Danley (P/OF), Mimi Gooden (P), Kennedy Harp (OF) and Isa Torres (INF) are the six incoming freshmen for the 2024 squad.

"I think we have some really talented freshmen coming in that have been texting every single day," Alameda said of the incoming freshman. "Even though they're not here, they are getting videos from me of like, this is what it's like when we get here.

"We've got the dream of where we want to be with the new ones coming in. It's just going to take work. The circle is probably one of the biggest things we really have to figure out."

Reach Ehsan Kassim at ekassim@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Ehsan_Kassim. You can also follow our coverage on Facebook (NoleSports) and Instagram (tlhnolesports).

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: WCWS softball environment is great, even with Oklahoma advantage