Alan's College Softball Blog

After three straight weekends of large tournaments, each featuring several of the nation's elite teams, the intensity seems to be lower this weekend, with a bunch of smaller tournaments and head-to-head series.

Perhaps the best match-up of the weekend will occur as part of the Husky Classic in Seattle, as LSU, No. 6 and 7 in the two national polls, will take on its first ranked opponent in the University of Washington (No. 14 and 15). After LSU plays a pair vs. Portland State, the Tigers and Huskies will play three times (LSU schedule).

No. 1 Tennessee travels from Knoxville to Chattanooga for the Frost Classic, against what appear to be heavily overmatched opponents. As noted in the linked document, an individual milestone may occur during the event:

History could also be made in Chattanooga as Lady Vol senior pitcher Monica Abbott stands just two wins from breaking the NCAA Division I career victory mark of 151 held by former Southern Miss hurler Courtney Blades. The 6-3 lefthander enters the weekend with 150 triumphs in her three-plus years wearing the Orange & White after opening the 2007 season at a perfect 11-0.

To see what other leading squads are up to, take a look at the team-specific webpages in the right-hand column.

Popular posts from this blog

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),...