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SEC Regular-Season Wrap-Up; Pac 12 News

Auburn righted its ship a bit, edging Texas A&M, 5-4, to end the Tigers' four-game SEC losing streak. Elsewhere in the conference, Georgia salvaged one win in its three-game series with Alabama, beating the Tide 9-5 today. The SEC will play a conference tournament, beginning on Wednesday; the bracket is available here.

The Pac 12, which doesn't have a conference tourney, will close out its regular season next weekend. With nine schools fielding softball squads, one team always gets a bye from conference play. Next week, it will be UCLA (16-5-1), which is done for the regular season. Barring some unlikely developments, the Bruins will finish second in the conference to Oregon (17-3). The Ducks host Utah for three games next weekend and, should UO get swept, its winning percentage (.739) would fall slightly below UCLA's (.750, counting a tie as half a win). Both the Ducks and Bruins have been very hot of late. Before losing to Cal yesterday, Oregon had won 10 straight conference games. UCLA, meanwhile, concluded Pac 12 play winning nine of its last 10 conference games.

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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 .