Auburn, having gone 10 innings to beat UCLA yesterday, is working overtime again, today vs. Florida. The Gators are coming up in the bottom of the ninth. The game was tied 2-2 after four innings and it has remained so ever since... A Gator win puts them in the championship series, which begins Monday night, as Auburn already has one loss and would be eliminated if it loses the current game. The Tigers would need to win the current game and beat Florida once more, to make the finals... UF's Nicole DeWitt singles to shallow left, driving in winning run from second with two outs... Gators to championship series! Michigan and LSU go scoreless in the first... LSU with a threat in the top of the second, with runners at the corners and one out... Sac-fly, almost to the track in center, brings home first run , 1-0 LSU ... Runner on first advances to second on wild pitch... Another wild one advances runner to third... HBP puts runners on corners again... Another shaky start for UM's...

It's called "Survival Saturday," because every game features teams coming in with one loss and thus every game will eliminate someone. The only way to survive is to win. Today's first two games pit against each other teams that lost in Thursday's first round: Auburn vs. Tennessee, and Alabama vs. Oregon. The winners will then take on a team that lost in Friday's second round (LSU or UCLA). Here's a chart to help you follow the proceedings, with my live-blogging of the games below it... No Losses One Loss Two Losses (Gone) Florida Michigan Auburn Tennessee Tennessee Alabama Alabama Oregon Oregon LSU UCLA UCLA HTML Tables   Unless Tennessee gets something going, it will be the first team to pack its bags, as the Volunteers trail Auburn 4-1, with the Tigers batting in the top of the fifth... Vols cut deficit to 4-2 in bottom of fifth, but leave bases loaded ... 4-2 Auburn is how it ends ... As pointed out on Auburn's Twitter page , this is...

FLORIDA - LSU : Tigers load the bases in the bottom of the first with no out, but can't get ball out of infield on next two at-bats, resulting in force play at home, and double-play (runner from second-to-third tagged out, batter thrown out at first)... Gator pitcher Lauren Haeger hits a two-run, milestone homer in the top of the fifth to break a scoreless tie... UF now leading 4-0 as LSU comes up in bottom of seventh... 4-0 is your final. UCLA - MICHIGAN : I'm always excited to see my undergraduate (UCLA) and graduate (Michigan) alma maters play each other! It's also a rematch of the epic 2005 final series , in which Michigan became the first school east of the Mississippi River to win the NCAA softball title... UCLA loads the bases with none out in the bottom of the first... 1-0 Bruins on a sharp single to left with one out... 2-0, as a two-out walk brings in a run... HBP makes it 3-0 Bruins , still bottom of the first... Haylie Wagner coming in to pitch for Megan ...

TENNESSEE - FLORIDA : Gator pitcher Lauren Haeger homers in bottom of the first , her 17th blast of the season, to make it 1-0... Vols avoid further damage, as UF leaves bases loaded... Gators again leave bases loaded in second... UF coming up in the bottom of the sixth, leading 5-2. As the score indicates, Haeger's long shutout-innings streak is over ... Final: Florida 7, Tennessee 2 . LSU - AUBURN :  The purple-and-gold is off to an early 1-0 lead on a Bianka Bell homer ... LSU leads 6-1 as Auburn bats in the bottom of the seventh... Auburn gets its first two batters on base; does it have another comeback a la  the super-regional opener vs. Louisiana-Lafayette in store? No. A double-play on a grounder to third and then a strikeout give LSU the easy win . ALABAMA - MICHIGAN : Kelly Christner homers in the bottom of the first to give the Wolverines a 1-0 lead... The Crimson Tide gets a single with one out in the top of the fourth, its first hit of the game... Lauren Sw...

When the 2015 NCAA Women's College World Series begins tomorrow, an inescapable fact will be the presence of five teams from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) within the eight-team field. In the following graph, I've depicted the number of teams the SEC and other major conferences have placed in the WCWS over the past 10 years, based on data from the Wikipedia . The expanding share of yellow represents SEC teams. And the trend is likely to get even more pronounced. The dashed-yellow slashes across some of the red (Big 12) blocks signify teams that were in the Big 12 at the time of their WCWS appearances, but have since moved to the SEC (Texas A&M and Missouri). The SEC's rise in softball started slow, but once begun, has been continuous. College softball came under the aegis of the NCAA in 1982, but it wasn't until 1997 that the SEC got a team (South Carolina) into the World Series. It's not that the SEC had a bunch of weak teams in the 1980s and '90s...

Florida , leading one game to none in its series vs. Kentucky, also leads by a score of 1-0 , as the Wildcats come up in the bottom of the seventh for their last chance to prolong the series... Florida advances on the strength of pitcher Lauren Haeger's 29 straight scoreless innings in the tournament (as pointed out in an ESPN graphic)... Missouri began the bottom of the first with four straight singles, but only scored one run . UCLA has now taken over the game , leading 6-1 as the Tigers bat in the bottom of the third... Bruins come up in top of seventh, leading 10-5 after Mizzou leaves bases loaded... UCLA 10, Missouri 6 is your final from Los Angeles; Bruins on to 25th WCWS appearance... I'm sure I speak for everyone in the college-softball community in wishing Missouri pitcher Tori Finucane the best, after she was hit by a line-drive in what looked like the mouth area. Here is a posting from Mizzou's Twitter page... Update from Mizzou Twitter is cautiously ...

The three remaining series get underway today: Florida-Kentucky, LSU-Arizona, and UCLA-Missouri. As always, we have the tracker board below to indicate the status of each series... Florida has gone up 4-0 on Kentucky, with the Gators batting in the bottom of the second... Final: Florida 7-0. LSU has quickly taken its opener from Arizona, 8-0 in a five-inning run-rule contest . UCLA wins opener over Missouri, 7-4. Auburn and Louisiana-Lafayette are tied 2-2 in Game 2 of their series, with the Tigers batting in the top of the fifth... ULL's erratic performance in the circle continues; illegal pitches and a wild pitch help Auburn take 3-2 lead in top of the sixth... Tigers pulling away, 6-2 ... ULL has bases loaded with two outs in bottom of sixth... One run walked in, score now 6-3 ... Fly-out to center ends Cajun threat... No further scoring, as Auburn clinches school's first-ever appearance in WCWS . Alabama shuts out Oklahoma 2-0 to force a third game, which ...

Below is today's version of the tracker chart that I introduced yesterday. A wild one featuring Louisiana-Lafayette at Auburn is going to extra innings. The Ragin' Cajuns seemingly had this super-regional opener wrapped up, leading 10-5 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, with Auburn having two runners on. However, four walks, a Tiger runner being awarded first base because a ULL relief pitcher exceeded the legal limit of warm-up pitches, and then another walk have tied the game 10-10 . Cajun pitchers weren't just walking batters; they weren't even coming close to home plate on most pitches. An Auburn hitter popped out to end the inning and I'm kind of shocked she swung at all... ULL regains the lead, 11-10 , in the top of the eighth on a wild pitch, with runners now at first and second with two outs... The Cajuns are retired with no further scoring... Auburn threatening in the bottom of the eighth with runners on first and second with no out. After a w...

The following chart will allow you to track the eight super-regional series, the two-out-of-three match-ups that will determine the participants in next week's Women's College World Series. Which super-regional series begin tonight, as opposed to Friday or Saturday? Which teams have captured one win on the road to the WCWS or have clinched a spot with two wins? It's all in the chart (or will be with my frequent updates)! Teams Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Kentucky at Florida (1)***  NC State at Oregon (2)** Georgia (14) at Michigan (3)* Michigan LA-Lafayette (13) at Auburn (4)** Arizona (12) at LSU (5)*** Oklahoma (11) at Alabama (6)** Missouri (10) at UCLA (7)*** Florida State (9) at Tennessee (8)* Tennessee HTML Tables *Game 1 Thursday, Games 2 and (if necessary) 3 on Friday. **Game 1 Friday, Games 2 and (if necessary) 3 on Saturday.  ***Game 1 Saturday, Games 2 and (if necessary) 3 on Sunday.

For the first time, I'm going to apply some established sports-prediction formulas to the NCAA softball super-regionals, which begin Thursday. The starting point is what's called each team's "Pythagorean" season-long expected win percentage, based on its total runs scored and total runs allowed. The Pythagorean formula was originally developed for Major League Baseball, by Bill James, but has been modified for college softball by researchers at Fastpitch Analytics. As shown in the chart below, for example, Florida would have been expected to win roughly 85% of its regular-season games this past season, based on how many runs the Gators scored and allowed. The next step is to apply a formula known as "Log5," which gives the probability of one team beating another head-to-head , based on each team's Pythagorean value. The favored team and its Log5 win probability are shown in the last two columns of the following chart. Home Team Pytha...

The results heavily followed the chalk this past weekend, as the top 14 seeded teams all won their respective regionals. Not advancing were the No. 15 (James Madison) and 16 (Notre Dame) seeds, which by definition are the weakest of the seeded teams. North Carolina State won the JMU-hosted regional, whereas Kentucky prevailed in South Bend. Interestingly, blogger Jon Nachtigal at Fastpitch Analytics wrote rather emphatically right after the 64-team field was announced on Selection Sunday that Kentucky should not have been awarded a bid . Now, Kentucky winning its regional does not necessarily mean that the committee made the proper selections with the information it had at the time . However, the Wildcats' win does seem to show the depth of the SEC, which has eight teams among the 16 in the super-regionals. Arguably the most exciting Sunday action was nowhere to be found on the ESPN Family of Networks, but only on live streaming video from the University of Arizona athletics w...

The following table shows the status of each regional. The "2-0" and "2-1" column headings reflect teams' records  entering  Sunday's play (with the exception of the Eugene, Oregon regional, which started a day earlier). Under the double-elimination format, the "2-1" team had to beat the "2-0" team twice on Sunday to advance.  Teams in bold (with game-article links) have advanced to the super-regionals. Region 2-0 2-1 Eliminated Eliminated Gainesville, FL Florida (1) Florida Atlantic Hofstra Florida A&M Eugene, OR Oregon (2) N. Dakota St. BYU Fresno St. Ann Arbor, MI Michigan (3) Pitt Cal Oakland U. Auburn, AL Auburn (4) S. Alabama Tennessee Tech Chattanooga Baton Rouge, LA Arizona St. LSU (5) Nebraska Texas Southern Tuscaloosa, AL Alabama (6) Washington SC-Upstate Fairfield Los Angeles, CA UCLA (7) San Diego St. Texas CS Northridge Knoxville, TN Tennessee (8) Utah Longwood Virginia Tech Tallahassee, FL Florida St. (9) UCF...

Not a good day so far for seeded (and unseeded) SEC teams. No. 5-seed LSU has fallen to Arizona State , 1-0. After starting off the season 25-0 and holding a 41-5 record as of April 19, the Tigers have stumbled, going 4-6 in their last 10 games before today's loss. Under the regionals' double-elimination format, LSU can still recover, but it won't be easy. No. 14-seed Georgia is locked in a marathon tussle with Western Kentucky, currently tied 1-1 in the 14th inning, the equivalent of two regulation-length games... ...and the Bulldogs have  just lost  to the Hilltoppers, 2-1. Another seed (this time non-SEC) has lost, as NC State shuts out No. 15-seed James Madison, 2-0. No. 11-seed Oklahoma narrowly escapes Texas A&M, 7-5, scoring three in the bottom of the seventh , including a walk-off two-run homer by Erin Miller.

We all make mistakes, but some are larger than others. Take today's first game of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama regional between South Carolina-Upstate and Washington. The Game Tracker page on the NCAA softball website (left) tells us that USC-Upstate pulled a 4-1 upset over the 11-time Women's College World Series participant Huskies. In seeking further details on the game, I discovered that -- not so fast -- maybe Upstate didn't win. In fact, the Spartans' Twitter feed (right) says that Washington won 4-1 (my highlighting added). The Huskies' Twitter feed (not shown) also proclaims a U-Dub win, so I'm going to conclude the NCAA site is wrong. As I write, the erroneous score still has not been corrected. If you want to be confident in the accuracy of a score, I have one piece of advice: Independently verify! *** Here's an actual upset: No. 16 seed Notre Dame falls at home to Ball State, 6-3.

My annual maps, visualizing the NCAA softball brackets geographically, are here. There are 16 seeded teams (with seed number in parentheses) in the 64-team field. The key thing to remember is that each set of four schools with the same color and design (based on the seeded team's school colors) are playing in the same regional. To minimize clutter, I have once again divided the regionals into those I consider relatively compact and those I consider scattered. Relatively compact means that all four teams in a regional are geographically close together, or three teams are close together and one distant team is being brought in. These regionals are shown in the following map, which you may click to enlarge. The Auburn (No. 4 seed) regional, for example, includes teams only from the adjacent states of Alabama and Tennesee. The UCLA (No. 7 seed) regional contains three teams from southern California, plus the University of Texas. The next map shows the scattered regionals, which...

Here are some miscellaneous items, leading into the revealing of the NCAA-tournament brackets on Selection Sunday ... Auburn continues to swing a hot bat, leading Alabama 5-1 in the bottom (Auburn-half) of the third in one SEC semifinal ( scoreboard ). In the other semi , Florida will take on Tennessee , which yesterday bounced host LSU . [ Update: Auburn wins 7-1 and will face Tennessee, a 2-1 winner over Florida, in Saturday's championship game.] Michigan coach Carol Hutchins discusses in this article how star shortstop-turned-second-baseperson Sierra Romero doesn't need to improve her playing skill-set so much as, "She needs to make her teammates better. She needs to start imparting her wisdom on them..." The Wolverines easily won their game today in the B1G tourney, a run-rule 16-1 rout over Penn State. Another B1G team piling up runs is tourney host Ohio State . The Buckeyes ripped Indiana 24-1 (run-ruled) yesterday, scoring 12 in the bottom of th...

For many conferences, this weekend was the last one of regular-season play, with conference tournaments taking place next weekend. These leagues include: The Big 10 (B1G), in which Michigan clinched the regular-season title . The conference-tourney bracket should appear soon on the Tournament Central site of host Ohio State. The SEC, in which struggling LSU today avoided a three-game sweep by up-and-coming Auburn. The 12-team bracket is available here , with the top four seeds, in order, being Florida, Auburn, Alabama, and LSU. The ACC, whose bracket will be headed up by Florida State, winner of the conference's regular-season championship three years running . Major circuits without a conference tourney include: The Pac 12, whose title will come down to Oregon (19-2) and UCLA (18-3 17-3, with the Bruins finishing up this weekend's series with Arizona tonight in a rare Sunday-evening contest ). Next weekend, Oregon plays three at Arizona, while UCLA does the same ...

Oklahoma's Lauren Chamberlain hit the 91st home run of her collegiate career yesterday in a game against North Texas, giving her the NCAA record for career round-trips. ESPN-W puts the record in historical context , observing among other things that: Even more impressive than the record itself is the fact she has broke the mark in 52 fewer games. Chamberlain has played 212 games in her career, while former record-holder Stacey Nuveman played 264.