Oklahoma softball coach defends players who attended Riley Gaines event

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Oklahoma Sooners softball coach Patty Gasso defended her players after some attended an event hosted by women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines last week.

Gaines has championed fairness in women’s sports since Lia Thomas tied with her at the NCAA Championships in 2022. Thomas also became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA women’s swimming championship. Since then, current and former female athletes have come together to keep biological males out of women’s sports.

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Oklahoma head softball coach Patty Gasso is pictured during the college softball game between the University of Oklahoma Sooners and the UCF Knights at Love's Field in Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday, April 4, 2025. (SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

Sooners pitchers Audrey Lowry and Sam Landry were in attendance for Gaines’ speech at the Turning Point USA event, according to OU Daily. The women were far from the only Sooners athletes at the event.

Gasso told the OU Daily that she did not hear Gaines’ praise of her and her team and would not comment.

"But the fact that our team is there, it’s their right whether they want to go or not," she said. "I support them and whatever they choose."

Peyton McQuillan, a Sooners track athlete, defended Gaines’ message in an interview with the student newspaper.

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Riley Gaines speaks at a University of Oklahoma Turning Point USA chapter speaking event in