Skip to main content
Evening

Here's how things stand regarding the quest for the championship of the Judi Garman Classic (copied and pasted from tournament website).

CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 1)
GAME 1: Michigan 1, Arizona 2
GAME 2: Louisiana-Lafayette 6, Penn State 5
GAME 3: Oklahoma 8, Cal State Northridge 0 (5 inn.)
GAME 4: DePaul 4, Fresno State 1

Arizona (V) vs. Louisiana-Lafayette (H), Sunday 8:30 a.m.
Oklahoma (H) vs. DePaul (V), Sunday 10:30 a.m.

Championship Game, Sunday 1 p.m.

As a University of Michigan graduate (Ph.D., 1989), I have to say that the loss to Arizona would seem to be a major missed opportunity for the Wolverines to strengthen their seeding potential for the NCAA tournament later this spring. The UM did not play a non-conference schedule that would get it too many games with top Pac-10 teams, so this could have been a big win. The Wolverines then dropped a 5-2 contest to fellow Big 10 team, Penn State, in an extra round presumably designed to let teams that lost their openers on Saturday get an extra game.

***

Here's tonight's SEC round-up. The conference's highly ranked teams held to form against their less-heralded opponents. One noteworthy development is LSU's doubleheader sweep over Florida; the Gators have been a bit of a roadblock to the conference's best teams thus far, taking a game each from Tennessee and Alabama earlier on.

Early morning

Louisiana Lafayette defeated Notre Dame in the late game last night, so today's match-ups in the championship brackets of Fullerton's Judi Garman Classic are set (copied and pasted from tournament website):

CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 1)
GAME 1: Michigan (A1) vs. Arizona (D2), Saturday 9 a.m.
GAME 2: Louisiana-Lafayette (B1) vs. Penn State (C2), Saturday 11:15 a.m.
GAME 3: Oklahoma (D1) vs. Cal State Northridge (A2), Saturday 1:30 p.m.
GAME 4: DePaul (C1) vs. Fresno State (B2), Saturday 4 p.m.

CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 2)
GAME 5: Florida State (A3) vs. NC State (D4), Saturday 9 a.m.
GAME 6: Arizona State (B3) vs. Cal State Fullerton (C4), Saturday 11:15 a.m.
GAME 7: Pacific (D3) vs. Washington (A4), Saturday 1:30 p.m.
GAME 8: Texas (C3) vs. Notre Dame (B4), Saturday 4 p.m.

Such is the depth of college softball that some quite good teams are in the consolation bracket. In fact, if you didn't see the labels "championship" and "consolation," it might be difficult for someone taking the equivalent of a "blind taste test" to say which bracket is which, just from the listings of teams.

Popular posts from this blog

This Friday (and all remaining Fridays of the regular season), I will preview the upcoming weekend's games. Before doing so, I wanted to do an entry, primarily for sports fans who have not watched much softball, on differences they could expect to see between softball and baseball. The Sandy Plains Softball Association of Marietta, Georgia has produced a document entitled Fastpitch 101 , which details the similarities and differences in the rules of the two sports. Here are some of my own observations from over the years: 1. Because the bases are considerably closer together in softball (60 feet) than in baseball (90 feet), softball infielders consistently must pick up ground balls and make their throws to first base quickly, in order to get the runner. In other words, many (if not most) softball grounders result in "bang-bang" plays at first base, necessitating a lot of close calls by first-base umpires, who must detect whether the thrown ball (to the first-baseperso...
Read more
Washington used a first-inning grand-slam homer from pitcher Danielle Lawrie and some late insurance runs to defeat Georgia by a score of 9-3 in tonight's late game. The win gives U-Dub a spot in the best-of-three championship series against Florida starting Monday (Georgia had defeated Washington earlier today, 9-8 in nine innings, to force tonight's rematch). The Huskies thus claimed "top dog" status over Georgia on their side of the bracket. Florida got a two-out grand-slam homer from Ali Gardiner in the bottom of the seventh to edge Alabama 6-5. The Crimson Tide made a strong recovery in the tournament after looking "not ready for prime time" in an opening-round loss to Michigan. But, as a result of tonight's heartbreaking loss to the Gators, Bama is now eliminated. Lowrie's and Gardiner's grand-slams are among four that have been hit so far in this World Series.
Read more

Florida Shines at Kajikawa Classic

The University of Florida, ranked No. 14 and 15 in the two major national preseason polls, pulled two major upsets en route to an undefeated 5-0 performance at the season-opening Kajikawa Classic at Arizona State. Among the Gator victims were three Pac 12 schools: No. 3 Cal (by a score of 7-4), No. 5/6 Oregon (1-0), and No. 13/14 Arizona (14-3). Full results of the tournament are available here .
Read more