At this point—a few years after the rule changes allowing for seismic player movement in college sports—it feels hard to be too surprised by anything that happens in the transfer portal. Yet the news out of college softball this week still managed to feel genuinely shocking.
Sophomore pitcher Jordy Bahl is leaving Oklahoma.
The announcement was stunning both in that it came from this specific player and from this specific program. Bahl won back-to-back championships in her two seasons at Oklahoma—the second of which came just last week and saw her named Most Outstanding Player. (She threw a complete-game shutout in Game 1 and closed out Game 2.) Bahl entered college as one of the best pitching recruits in the game and has only gotten better in the time since. Even on a loaded staff, she was the clear ace, part of a squad whose future looks almost impossibly bright. (Yes, even after three consecutive titles, Oklahoma is still the favorite to win another next year.) Yet Bahl said she wanted to be closer to family in Nebraska—reportedly to play for the University of Nebraska, about an hour from her hometown of Papillion, though she has yet to announce a destination herself.
