Skip to main content

The SEC regular season closes on a high note this weekend, with the nation's No. 1-ranked team, Alabama, facing No. 2 Tennessee in a three-game series. The teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon and a single game on Sunday (the conference tournament then begins on Thursday, May 10).

The official SEC softball page has a nice preview of the series, with all kinds of statistics and brief featured-player profiles.

I've been skeptical of 'Bama this season, given what I consider a much less challenging schedule than that played by other top teams in the country (click here to see the Tide's schedule and results, and be sure to look at the column titled "Opp Rank" to see the ranking, if any, of each of their opponents).

Quoting from the Tennessee article previewing the series:

The series opener (Saturday at 1 p.m. ET) will be shown on ESPN2 while the finale (Sunday 1 p.m. ET) will be broadcast on ESPN with Eric Collins and U.S. National Team member Cat Osterman on the call for the two match-ups.

The preview article from Alabama's site is available here.

I would be remiss, especially if there are any LSU fans reading this, if I didn't note that the No. 4 Bayou Bengals have won their series against Alabama and Tennessee this season, each by two games to one. LSU has Georgia on its mind this weekend.

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...
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.

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 .