Alan's College Softball Blog

Earlier tonight, ESPN presented a tape-delayed broadcast of yesterday's National Pro Fastpitch game between Philadelphia and Chicago. The game answered a question I raised in my July 20 entry, namely whether members of the US national team would be competing in NPF, considering that they still have the World Championships to play in about a month. The answer is yes, they are playing in NPF. I saw national team members Natasha Watley and Vicky Galindo participating in the Philly-Chicago contest (also noted in this game summary). I think it's good for a sport -- especially one that's still new to much of the American sports public -- to showcase its top players as much as is practicable.

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Few minutes after 6:00 pm Central: We now have our eighth team for the Women's College World Series, Oregon State (in the postings below, all WCWS qualifiers are depicted in bold). The Beavers defeated Cal 3-0 and then 1-0 today, to take the teams' super-regional series 2-1. 4:40 pm Central: We have the identities of two more teams going to the WCWS (bringing the total to seven), but Oregon State has stayed alive against Cal, forcing a third and deciding game to determine the one remaining team for the World Series. Leave it to the Beavers! Here are the two teams (in bold) that have earned bids to Oklahoma City thus far today: Tennessee , which edged Michigan 1-0 in what must have been a very dramatic finish to those who saw it live. The reason I say must have been is that ESPN cut away to show a live Barry Bonds at-bat in his quest for 715 home runs, a number that would surpass Babe Ruth for second on the all-time list. Sure enough, Bonds blasted one deep into the c...

2012 Geospatial Map of NCAA Tournament

Here is my annual geospatial map of the NCAA regional assignments. The official NCAA bracket is listed here . Each of the 16 regional sites has its own color code. For example, the geographically compact University of Florida region, hosted by the No. 5 seed Gators and also featuring Central Florida, South Florida, and Florida Gulf Coast, depicts the teams in blue boxes with orange letters. Two of the most spread-out regions are: The one hosted by top-seed Cal, whose visitors include Arkansas, Iona (NY), and Boston University. These teams are shown in dark-blue boxes with yellow lettering. The University of Washington (No. 16 seed) region, whose participants (depicted in purple boxes with yellow letters) include Texas Tech, Maryland, and Harvard. Overall, the seedings are about what I had expected them to be (other years have presented greater surprises). Conference highlights (and lowlights) include: Of the nine Pac 12 schools that field softball teams, eight got in t...

Tennessee and Georgia went down to the wire, with the Bulldogs taking Game 2 by a 1-0 score to even the series, and the Volunteers coming back to win Game 3 by a 2-1 margin and advance to the Women's College World Series . LSU and Missouri are tied 1-1 after 8 innings in Game 2 of their series. This game doesn't get settled until the 12th inning, with Mizzou scoring four runs in the top half (thanks, in part, to an errant LSU throw) and LSU going down quietly in the bottom half. Mizzou's 5-1 win sends the series to a deciding third game which should start a little before 7:00 pm Central. LSU takes Game 3 by a 3-1 score over Missouri. Washington and Cal are scoreless in Game 2, heading into the bottom of the second. The Huskies loaded the bases in the bottom of the first, but couldn't score. Cal has beaten Washington 2-0 in Game 2, thus sweeping the series without allowing the Huskies a run. Please see my super-regional chart in Thursday's posting (below),...