Skip to main content
Late Night

A few developments stood out to me from today's action in the Palm Springs tournament. For one thing, Northwestern handed No. 2 Arizona State its first loss of the season, with four runs in the top of the seventh propelling the Purple to a 5-2 win (here's a box score; articles should be available at some point on each school's team page).

Also, Oklahoma burst onto my radar screen today, defeating two nationally ranked Pac-10 teams, Oregon State and Cal. The Sooners are undefeated so far this season, but the quality of their opposition prior to Palm Springs was not exactly stellar (game-by-game log).

Elsewhere, Texas A&M rebounded from its opening loss at Arizona in the teams' three-game series, the Aggies winning 4-3 tonight on the strength of a grand-slam homer by Jamie Hinshaw.

Note that, because Northwestern and the University of Arizona are both known as the Wildcats, bringing upon the height of confusion when the two met in the championship round of last June's NCAA Women's College World Series, I try as best as possible to distinguish the two teams. In that regard, I have taken often to calling Northwestern "the Purple," for its distinctive school colors.

In today's most bizarre outcome, Texas Tech held a 7-0 lead over Florida Atlantic as the latter came to bat in the bottom of the seventh in the Boca Raton tournament, only to have FAU come up with eight runs (six after there were two outs) to win 8-7. Texas Tech still qualified, however, for Sunday's championship game against Illinois.

Early Morning

Since Friday's feature games took place in the evening in the Pacific and Mountain Time zones, I didn't have a chance to report these late results last night. Hence, this early morning entry.

In the Palm Springs tournament, No. 1-ranked Tennessee closed out last night's action with a 6-1 thumping of UCLA. Also, Northwestern defeated Oregon State, 2-0. If you go down to my previous posting in which I previewed this tournament and click on the highlighted link that says "information sheet," you can get the scores of completed games. Also, by clicking on the score of a particular game, you can get the box score. Articles and further details can be obtained by visiting the team-specific homepages in the links section on the right-hand side of the present page.

The other focus of interest in the college softball world last night was, of course, the opener of a three-game series in Tucson between Texas A&M and Arizona. As described in this article from the Wildcat athletics site, U of A shut out A&M 5-0 behind a Taryne Mowatt one-hitter. For the Aggies, after some early success, pitcher Amanda Scarborough did not "fare" so well (for those of you too young to get that reference, see here).

Popular posts from this blog

Pitching Star NiJaree Canady Reportedly in the Transfer Portal

Stanford pitching ace NiJaree Canady has reportedly entered the transfer portal ( link ), having completed two seasons in the circle for the Cardinal. Stanford has made the WCWS in both of Canady's seasons on the team. Another school hit hard by the transfer portal is the University of Washington, with an exodus of eight Huskies . This list of the top ten players in the portal includes four from UW. Today is the final day of the 30-day window for players to enter the portal.

NiJaree Canady Transferring to -- of All Places -- Texas Tech

NiJaree Canady, whose sub-1.00 ERA helped lead Stanford to the Women's College World Series in both her years with the Cardinal, announced on July 24 that she is transferring to Texas Tech. I've lived in Lubbock for 27 years and can say that the town has been improving with a greater selection of restaurants and shops, and a new downtown performing arts center. Likewise, nice new facilities have been dotting the Texas Tech campus . Still, it seems unlikely that Canady would have become a Red Raider without the $1 million annual Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deal for her, made possible by the donation of a Texas Tech alumni couple. So stunning an event is this, even in the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics, that the New York Times  even ran a behind-the-scenes story on Canady's path to Texas Tech. I look forward to being in the stands to watch Canady pitch next spring, an opportunity I never expected to have.

2024 WCWS -- Day 6

Oklahoma has kept its quest for a fourth straight WCWS title alive with a 6-5 eight-inning win over Florida to advance to the championship round. The Sooners will take on Texas in a two-out-of-three series beginning Wednesday night. Florida held a 5-2 lead after three innings and looked well on its way to beating OU for the second straight day, which would have eliminated the Sooners and taken the Gators to the final round. However, UF scored no further runs, whereas Oklahoma chipped away with two in the fourth, one in the sixth, and one in the eighth. The final run came via Jayda Coleman's opposite-field walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the eighth.  Sooner starter Kelly Maxwell went the distance, allowing only four hits. Three of those hits were home runs within the first three innings; the only other Gator hit was an infield single in the top of the sixth. Maxwell also walked five and struck out eight. Florida starter Keagan Rothrock also went the distance, allowing 1...