Skip to main content
During a break in one of the March Madness NCAA basketball games this afternoon, I was doing some channel surfing and came upon a Fox Sports cable telecast of the finale of this weekend's Alabama-LSU softball series. The Tigers won today's game 3-0, although things were a little more precarious for LSU than the score suggests, as Alabama got multiple runners on base in the top halves of the sixth and seventh innings. In fact, the Crimson Tide's offensive totals in the box score reflected the unusual situation of a team getting 10 hits, but no runs. Alabama hurler Chrissy Owens (16-1) absorbed her first loss of the season. With the win, LSU took the three-game series, 2-1.

Elsewhere in the SEC, Florida swept its series with Georgia in a battle of nationally ranked squads, No. 1 Tennessee continues to roll (sweeping Arkansas this weekend), and Kentucky's Brooke Marnitz (facing Mississippi this weekend) continues her hot hitting. In statistics as of Saturday that I found on the UK athletics website Sunday night, Marnitz has a batting average of .432, an on-base average of .484, and a slugging percentage of .963.

It's still a while away, in late April, but two LSU-Tennessee games will be televised on ESPN2.

***

Around the nation, in the Louisville tournament, Michigan rebounded from its tough Saturday to beat the host Cardinals, leaving U of L at 3-1 for the tourney. Northwestern also finished at 3-1 in the event. In theory, one could award the tournament title to the Cards, as they beat the Wildcats head-to-head, but the Louisville softball page made no mention of the final standings, as best I could tell.

In the Big 12, Texas slowed down Oklahoma's momentum a bit, defeating the Sooners in 10 innings.

Next weekend, the Big 10 and Pac 10 start their conference seasons!

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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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...
Read more