NORMAN — There haven't been many low points for Oklahoma this season. The Sooners are 48-7, won the SEC regular season championship and are the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

But that series at Tuscaloosa was a rare rough patch for the Sooners.

Alabama simply outplayed the Sooners when the two teams met last month. The Sooners dropped two of the three games and scored just two runs over the final two games, as they looked unprepared for everything Alabama threw at them.

This weekend, the Sooners have a shot at revenge. They host the 15-seed Crimson Tide in the Super Regional round as both teams will clash for a spot in the Women's College World Series.

For OU coach Patty Gasso, there's been a lot of growth since that series loss at Alabama.

"I think we used that weekend to learn a lot and take away from that ways to be better," Gasso said. "We have executed that. They responded really well afterwards. We've been on a roll since. I think we're playing our best softball right now."

That Alabama series was particularly a low point for OU's offense.

In that series, the Sooners recorded their fewest amount of runs (7), hits (15) and walks (5) in any three-game stretch this season. They logged a collective batting average of .189 and went scoreless in 19 of the 22 innings in that series, as Alabama pitcher Jocelyn Briski had OU's hitters completely out of whack.

The team has since acknowledged that they struggled to handle the enviornment.

"I think our team went in there with all the knowledge we could have had for the pitchers," junior outfielder Abby Dayton said. "I think because it was such a new team and it was early on in the season we kind of let the emotions get to us. It was our first away crowd that really was a standout and I think we let those emotions get to us.

"But we have all the same information and we're a different team now and it's completely different. And I'm glad that happened early on in the season, because it made us grow, and we're a different team now."

Since then, the numbers suggest the Sooners have hit their stride. They've won 12 of 14 games since that Alabama series. That includes sweeps over Mississippi State and Texas, and two wins at the SEC Tournament before it was canceled due to weather.

But most importantly, they've found their offense. They've averaged over seven runs per game since that Alabama series with a collective batting average of .343.

That was fully on display last weekend in the Norman Regional. The Sooners run-ruled all three opponents by a combined score of 31-3 while recording 28 hits and eight home runs.

OU third baseman Nelly McEnroe-Marinas can trace their recent success to what they learned in that Alabama series.

"I feel like with this team now, and being able to experience all that we have since then, I feel like we have kind of learned to embrace it and kind of just think, 'We're playing and (fans are) watching,' and that's all it really is," McEnroe-Marinas said. "Just not making the moment too big and not making this game bigger than it is.

There's a lot of evidence that the Sooners have learned a lot. But they'll have to prove it in the biggest weekend of the season.

They're confident they're ready for the challenge.

"I feel like we've grown a lot in that way, and then just trusting what we've been doing and the work we've been putting in," McEnroe-Marinas said.