Jocelyn Alo is looking to add to her already impressive résumé as the Oklahoma softball star continues her quest to defend the Sooners’ 2021 national championship.

With the largest margin of victory in NCAA tournament history Sunday, Oklahoma downed Texas A&M 20-0 in five innings to advance to the school’s 12th straight Super Regionals appearance.

Alo was her big-hitting self during the contest, knocking in her 115th career home run to help her side complete a dominant start to the postseason.

🤙 𝐀𝐋𝐎. 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐁𝐘𝐄 🤙@78jocelyn_alo. 27th of the season. 115 in the career.

T1 | OU 9, TAMU 0 | 📺 ESPNEWS pic.twitter.com/H7WFcUGP0p

— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) May 22, 2022

As the redshirt senior eyes a second Women’s College World Series title, Alo is looking back at her historic career.

Perhaps the most pivotal moment came in March, when Alo hit the 96th homer of her career to become NCAA softball’s all-time leading home run hitter.

“It’s a win for women’s sports in general because obviously we might not get the coverage, we might not get the media, the things that we deserve,” Alo told ESPN of her achievement. “If I can put the sport out and just have it get the media and coverage that it deserves, then I say it’s a win.”

The record, however, placed a lot of unwanted attention and stress on Alo, who went eight games between her record-tying and record-breaking homer — the longest drought of her career.

A media circus followed Alo and Oklahoma from game to game, with fans acutely aware of what was at stake every time the senior stepped up to the plate.

“I just wanted to get the record over with just because of how much buzz was around it and how many walks I was getting,” Alo told ESPN. “I was like, ‘Come on guys, let’s just compete.'”

When Alo finally broke the record, she did so at the University of Hawai’i, in her home state. The moment brought the softball star and hometown hero full circle.

“To be able to hit it in Hawai’i, against Hawai’i, on the field where she won the high school state championship and all of her families who can’t ever get here [to Oklahoma] — her sisters, her mother, a huge, huge, huge family — they were all there to witness this, and it truly could not have been scripted any better,” Sooners hitting coach JT Gasso said to ESPN. “It was just, it was just the most emotional, tremendous moment. One of the best I’ve ever had as a coach, just watching her go through that.”

With her mark forever on collegiate softball, Alo looks to add a national title defense to her name as Oklahoma prepares to take on UCF at the NCAA Super Regionals. The first game of the three-game series is set for 4:30 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN2.

The 2025 WNBA season ended on a high note for Connecticut Sun star Tina Charles on Wednesday night, as the veteran center took home this year's Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award, an annual honor recognizing the WNBA player "who best exemplifies the characteristics of a leader in the community where they work or live."

Known for her career-long consistency on the court — where Charles leads the WNBA in all-time rebounds and sits second only to retired legend Diana Taurasi in career points — the 36-year-old standout is also deeply active with her nonprofit organization, the Hopey's Heart Foundation.

Founded in memory of Charles's late aunt Maureen "Hopey" Vaz in 2013, the family-run organization works to provide life-saving Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to schools and rec centers. Hopey's Heart celebrated their 500th AED distribution this year.

Due to these efforts — as well as her other team- and community-based initiative work — the WNBA chose to recognize Charles for "her extraordinary commitment to service, social justice, and creating lasting impact in the communities she serves."

Notably, this isn't Charles's first time earning the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award, with the WNBA star first receiving the honor for personally funding the building of a school for hundreds of children in Mali in 2012.

"Through my mother at a young age, I learned the importance of being a servant unto others, and receiving the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award is truly special for me — especially for Hopey's Heart Foundation to receive this honor through its work in raising awareness for sudden cardiac arrest," Charles said in her acceptance speech on Wednesday night.

Along with her award, the WNBA is donating $10,000 to Charles's foundation alongside $20,000 from Connecticut's Yale New Haven Health.

Congress members are speaking up for the WNBPA amid the union's ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations, with 85 lawmakers from the Democratic Women's Caucus and the House Democratic Caucus sending an open letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert on Tuesday demanding that the league "bargain in good faith to reach a fair CBA in a timely manner before the October 31 deadline."

Citing concerns "about the WNBA's delayed response, the differing accounts on the status of negotiations, and.. the needs of players," the letter vehemently voices support for the Players Association as temperatures rise in the tense CBA negotiations.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

The league and the WNBPA have struggled to find common ground, with both parties forced to consider filing an extension in the coming weeks.

"WNBA players receive no shared revenue under the current CBA," the Congress members explained in their letter. "This is drastic in comparison with other major professional sports leagues: National Basketball Association players receive 49 to 51%, National Football League players receive at least 48.8%, and National Hockey League players receive 50% of their respective shared revenues."

Players are also speaking out, with Seattle Storm star Gabby Williams recently telling CBS Sports, "The WNBA isn't enticing enough as far as money goes in order to keep us out of the other leagues."

Unrivaled Basketball is on the up and up, with the 3×3 league announcing expansion plans for its second season on Wednesday, growing from six to eight teams in 2026 following the venture's successful round of funding earlier this week.

Joining the offseason upstart in Miami next year will be Breeze Basketball Club and Hive Basketball Club.

The two new teams create 12 more roster spots, while another six will comprise the league's development pool — raising the total athletes on Unrivaled's payroll from 36 in its inaugural season to 54 in 2026.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

Unrivaled is also adding a fourth night of games each week to accommodate the incoming clubs, a move that will eliminate back-to-back matchups though each team will still play two games per week.

After nearly breaking even in their debut season, co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are growing Unrivaled ahead of schedule, moving expansion to 2026 from the league's original 2027 target.

"We outperformed every goal we set for the league in year one, and with the incredible talent we have returning paired with the influx of new stars, it was a no brainer to add two more clubs this season," Unrivaled president of basketball Luke Cooper said in the league's Wednesday announcement.

Unrivaled currently has more than 90% of its 2026 roster confirmed — including Dallas Wings rookie superstar Paige Bueckers — with plans to release the full second-season lineup by the end of September.

The NWSL salary cap has become a hot topic in recent weeks, with big-name — and big-money — transfers like Angel City forward Alyssa Thompson's overseas move to Chelsea and North Carolina Courage striker Jaedyn Shaw's reportedly imminent trade to Gotham raising concerns about the league's financial edge.

While Shaw's reported league-record $1.25 million trade proves that US teams are willing to pay a premium for top talent, the disparity between flashy transfer fees and salary limitations could be holding the NWSL back.

"I know that in the NWSL there are ambitious clubs that want to be able to compete with the likes of a Chelsea, with the likes of a Barcelona," retired USWNT star Tobin Heath said on last week's episode of The RE—CAP Show. "These teams are capped out, they can't compete. They're going to lose their best players."

The league's most recent collective bargaining agreement sets each NWSL club's current salary cap at $3.3 million, which will titrate up to $5.1 million by 2030 while also adding potential revenue sharing options.

In 2024, the average league salary was $117,000. However, with 22- to 26-player rosters, teams often low-ball some athletes in order to afford to pay out for superstars.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

Soft salary cap overseas lures soccer's top players

In comparison, the UK's WSL and second-tier WSL2 operate with soft caps, recently shifting to a framework that allows teams to spend up to 80% of their revenue plus a capped contribution from club owners on player salaries.

"We have no intent to kind of 'cap' any players' earnings," WSL Football COO Holly Murdoch told The Guardian earlier this month. "We're at the investment stage of women's football, so we don't want to deter investment. We don't want to put in rules that don't make us an attractive investment."

With NWSL top earners Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman becoming free agents in 2026, the US league might need to rethink its model to stay competitive in an increasingly aggressive global market.