ESPN-W has a detailed article on Auburn players' allegations of sexual harassment against then associate head coach Corey Myers and the resignation of head coach Clint Myers.

Getting ready for Game 2 between Florida and Oklahoma... Last night, OU played the wild-card with its starting pitcher, opting for usual closer Paige Lowary... Tonight, Florida's making an even bolder move, starting Aleshia Ocasio, who has pitched only five innings ( here ,  here , and here ) since April 30 (I misheard what the ESPN announcers initially said, leading me to think Ocasio had pitched very few innings all season; my apologies). In her first two years at UF (2015 and 2016), Ocasio pitched 136 and 146.1 innings , with ERA's of 2.01 and 0.77, respectively. However, with the emergence of Kelly Barnhill and Delanie Gourley in the circle for Florida, Ocasio has been playing mostly at third base this season...  The Sooners are the home team tonight... TOP 1 -- Lead-off walk to Amanda Lorenz... Bunted to second... Pop-up for second out... Another walk... Soft liner to first, Shay Knighten fields on a bounce and steps on bag for third out... BOTTOM 1 -- Nicol...

Game 1 between Florida and Oklahoma will be starting momentarily. As we noted yesterday, we are guaranteed that, for the fifth year in a row, the champion will be either Florida (2014 and 2015 champions) or Oklahoma (2013 and 2016 champions). Florida will be the home team in tonight's opener... TOP 1 -- Florida's Kelly Barnhill easily retires the Sooners, including two strikeouts. BOTTOM 1 -- Paige Lowary, OU's fireball-throwing closer (approaching 75 mph on her pitches), is the surprise starter... Gators down in order... TOP 2 -- Uneventful again... BOTTOM 2 -- Interesting explanation by ESPN announcers of Sooners' defensive shift when Gators send up certain right-handed hitters. Basically, OU goes without a left-fielder, bringing her into the infield. Three infielders play to the right of second base and two play to the left of it... UF retired on three grounders... TOP 3 -- Still no baserunners... BOTTOM 3 -- With two outs, we have our first baserunner, a...

Florida is on to the championship round, having eliminated Washington by a 5-2 score. Oregon and Oklahoma are now playing, with the Sooners needing to beat the Ducks just once to advance, whereas Oregon would need to defeat Oklahoma twice... Even though Oklahoma is well-known as "OU" and Oregon as "UO," I'll refrain from using these abbreviations to avoid confusion... Game is scoreless, bottom 2, but the Sooners are threatening with runners at the corners and two outs... Grounder near second base leads to easy force-out to retire Oklahoma... Lauren Lindvall leads off top of third with double for Ducks, but popped-up bunt, fly-out, and short bloop caught by pitcher Paige Parker quickly ends half-inning... Single and stolen base give Ducks runner on second with one out, top 4... Infield pop for second out... Fly-out ends half-inning... Top 5: Danica Mercado drills two-run homer to right, making it 2-0 Ducks... Oklahoma lead-off batter in bottom half bunts, end...

"Survival Saturday" it's called, and the concept is simple: You lose today and you're done for the season. The first two games (Texas A&M-UCLA and Oregon-Baylor) involve teams who lost their opening WCWS games on Thursday. Each survivor of an early Saturday game will play again later today, against one of the Friday losers (LSU or Washington). To help follow the action, I have the following chart. Commentary on each of today's games will appear below the chart. No Losses One Loss Two Losses (Gone) Florida Texas A&M Texas A&M Oklahoma UCLA UCLA Oregon Baylor Baylor LSU LSU Washington HTML Tables Texas A&M is the first team going home, after its 8-2 loss to UCLA. The Bruins will face Washington sometime later today... Oregon leads Baylor 2-0 in today's second game, which is currently in a rain delay  , with Baylor scheduled to be batting in the bottom of the second. The Ducks seem to be coping OK ... It's now 3:45 pm Centr...

Two games today, both winners' bracket match-ups. In the opener, Florida and LSU are scoreless, with the Tigers batting in the bottom of the third... A walk, HBP, and double give the Gators a 2-0 lead , top 4... With two out, LSU botches play at first after grounder to pitcher. Batter safe, but when UF runner from second tries to score, she's thrown out at plate, ending half-inning. Replay suggests runner's hand might have gotten to plate before tag, but there are no replay appeals... Not much drama the rest of the way, as Florida wins 7-0 ... Oklahoma and Washington just underway, with the Huskies the home team... Top 2: Oklahoma scores runner from third on two-out bunt, giving Sooners 1-0 lead. Sure looks to me like OU runner went out of the baseline to get around catcher... Infield hit loads bases for Oklahoma... Force out at second ends Sooner threat... OU adds two singles to a U-Dub error in the top of the fifth, making it 2-0 Sooners... Teams trade solo homers in ...

Today features four opening-round games of the Women's College World Series. In three of these games, the teams are from the same conference: Florida vs. Texas A&M (both from the SEC), Oregon vs. Washington (both Pac 12), and Oklahoma vs. Baylor (both Big 12). The exception to all the intraconference play is the match-up of UCLA (Pac 12) and LSU (SEC). Florida is threatening to blow out Texas A&M, as the Gators lead 5-0 in the bottom of the fourth, and have runners at first and second with one out... Aleshia Ocasio promptly homers , making it 8-0... That score is the final, as Florida wins in run-rule fashion ... LSU has edged UCLA , 2-1, in the second game of the day... Washington bests Oregon , 3-1... And in the final game of the day, Oklahoma leads Baylor, 4-1, with the Sooners batting in the bottom of the second... Sooners close it out , 6-3. Was 6-1 OU entering Baylor (top) half of seventh and shaky Sooner infield defense helped Bears score a couple of runs.

Today, barring any weather-related issues, the super-regional tracking board will be completed and we'll have our field for the Women's College World Series. There are four decisive Game 3's today. Comments on the games are shown below the table. Teams Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Alabama (16) at Florida (1)* Alabama Florida Florida Baylor (15) at Arizona (2)** Arizona Baylor Baylor Kentucky (14) at Oregon (3)** Oregon Oregon --- LSU (13) at Florida State (4)** FSU LSU LSU Mississippi (12) at UCLA (5)* UCLA UCLA --- Utah (11) at Washington (6)** Washington Utah Washington Oklahoma (10) at Auburn (7)** Oklahoma Oklahoma --- Texas A&M (9) at Tennessee (8)** Tennessee A&M A&M HTML Tables *Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (if necessary) **Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary).  LSU has come back from an opening-game loss on Friday to win its super-regional, with a 6-4 decision today over Florida State. LSU's win ensures that the SEC will have three...

Here is the super-regional tracking board (with links in the results area) and comments on the games below... Teams Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Alabama (16) at Florida (1)* Alabama Florida Florida Baylor (15) at Arizona (2)** Arizona Baylor Kentucky (14) at Oregon (3)** Oregon Oregon --- LSU (13) at Florida State (4)** FSU LSU Mississippi (12) at UCLA (5)* UCLA UCLA --- Utah (11) at Washington (6)** Washington Utah Oklahoma (10) at Auburn (7)** Oklahoma Oklahoma --- Texas A&M (9) at Tennessee (8)** Tennessee A&M HTML Tables *Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (if necessary) **Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary).  Oklahoma closes out Auburn, 5-2, to get back to Women's College World Series... Nicole Pendley's three-run homer begins the scoring and Sooners never look back... LSU, batting in bottom of third vs. Florida State, scores game's first run . Tigers may well get more, with runners on the corners and none out... Bases loaded... FSU's Megha...

Here is the super-regional tracking board (with links in the results area) and comments on the games below... Teams Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Alabama (16) at Florida (1)* Alabama Florida Baylor (15) at Arizona (2)** Arizona Kentucky (14) at Oregon (3)** Oregon LSU (13) at Florida State (4)** FSU Mississippi (12) at UCLA (5)* UCLA UCLA --- Utah (11) at Washington (6)** Washington Oklahoma (10) at Auburn (7)** Oklahoma Texas A&M (9) at Tennessee (8)** Tennessee HTML Tables *Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (if necessary) **Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary).  Oklahoma at Auburn underway. Sooners leave bases loaded in top of first, without scoring... Auburn does the same in the bottom of the second... Oklahoma is leading 2-0, top 6, and has the bases loaded with two out... Pop to 2B ends threat... Final score is 4-0 Sooners... Florida State leads LSU 1-0, bottom 4... After Tigers tie the game in the top of the fifth on this slide , Noles put two across in bot...

Here is the super-regional tracking board (with links in the results area) and comments on the games below... Teams Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Alabama (16) at Florida (1)* Alabama Baylor (15) at Arizona (2)** Kentucky (14) at Oregon (3)** LSU (13) at Florida State (4)** Mississippi (12) at UCLA (5)* UCLA Utah (11) at Washington (6)** Oklahoma (10) at Auburn (7)** Texas A&M (9) at Tennessee (8)** HTML Tables *Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (if necessary) **Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary).  Alabama has upset No. 1-seeded Florida, 3-0, in the opener of the teams' super-regional series. According to the Tide's Twitter feed, "Alabama pitching has only allowed one run in NCAA Tournament play, including a current streak of 28.2-straight scoreless innings." Ole Miss, having been no-hit for the first five innings by UCLA frosh Rachel Garcia, has cut the Bruins' lead in half, to 4-2, in the top of the sixth. A single, homer (by Brittany Finney),...

The schedules for all the super-regional match-ups are available here . Two series (Alabama at Florida, and Ole Miss at UCLA) will play their games on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (if necessary). The other six series will be held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Two games are being played today, to finish off the regionals (scroll down to yesterday's entry and see chart). Oklahoma leads Tulsa 2-0 in today's winner-take-all game, with the Sooners batting in the top of the sixth... OU staged a dramatic comeback against the Golden Hurricane yesterday to force today's decisive game... Make that 3-0 Oklahoma ( Monday gametracker )... 3-0 is the final score as OU moves on to the super-regionals... In action late Sunday night, LSU defeated McNeese State and then Louisiana-Lafayette to force a decisive rematch today between LSU and ULL... ULL leads today's rematch 1-0, with the Rajin' Cajuns batting in the top of the third ( Monday gametracker )... LSU roars back to win 5-1 and advance to the supers ... When all is said and done, all 16 national seeds advance, the first time this has happened in the 13 years the super-regional format has been in effect. FLO Softball has a nice overview of the recently concluded regionals.

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 Salt Lake City 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) Oklahoma St.* Florida Intl Florida A&M Tucson, AZ Arizona (2) S. Carolina St. Francis NM State Eugene, OR Oregon (3) Wisconsin Mizzou Illinois-Chi. Tallahassee, FL Florida St. (4) Georgia Jacksonville St. Princeton Los Angeles, CA UCLA (5) CS Fullerton San Jose St. Lehigh Seattle, WA Wash. (6) Michigan Fresno St. Montana Auburn, AL Auburn (7) Cal Notre Dame E. Tenn. St. Knoxville, TN Tenn. (8) Longwood Ohio St. SC-Upstate Coll. Station, TX Tex A&M ...

Although Minnesota received many statements of support after being omitted from the group of 16 nationally seeded teams, I felt there was also considerable pressure on the Gophers to prove the NCAA tournament committee wrong. Whatever pressure there was before has been increased tremendously, as the Gophers' vaunted offense was stymied in a 1-0 nine-inning loss to No. 16 seed Alabama... Minnesota will need to sweep three games (including two over Alabama) or its season is over! No. 10 seed Oklahoma looked to be in a bit of danger, trailing North Dakota State 2-0 after five innings. However, The Sooners scored a pair in the bottom of the sixth to tie things up ( gametracker )... Bison and Sooners will be going extras, as OU retired in the bottom of the seventh when batter thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double... NDSU scores in top of ninth, then, aided by this catch in the bottom half, closes out Oklahoma, 3-2. Oregon survives by the skin of its teeth against ...

I had the pleasure Tuesday morning of chatting with radio host Derek Martin of Iowa radio station KMA about the upcoming NCAA women's softball tournament. A recording of my segment, running about 10 minutes, is available at this link . The big topic in the interview, as indeed it is among college-softball observers nationwide, was the NCAA's exclusion of Minnesota among the 16 nationally seeded teams, forcing the Gophers to face a daunting road to the Women's College World Series. As I alluded to in the interview, not long after the NCAA's snub, the Gophers were announced as the No. 1 team in the nation in the weekly NFCA/ USA Today poll. Criticism of the NCAA's seedings continues to roll in . Toward the end of the interview, Derek pointed out that Minnesota frosh catcher Kendyl Lindaman is from Ankeny, Iowa and he told some interesting stories about her power-hitting prowess in high school. Now, at the NCAA level, Lindaman has a slugging percentage of .942 ,...

We're back once again with our annual geospatial map of where the 64 teams have been sent for regional play in the first weekend. This map allows you to see the extent to which the NCAA has kept regionals compact to save on travel costs, as opposed to sending teams across the country. For the last couple of years, I have used the Batch Geo website, which allows one to import an Excel list of schools (with addresses) and then generates a color-coded map, grouping schools by regional. There are 16 regional sites, each containing four schools, which would probably create too much clutter for most readers' tastes, so I have broken the regionals up into three graphs, one with six regionals and the other two with five each. The regional hosts are identified in a black horizontal bar at the bottom of each graph. "Balloons" of the same color within the same graph represent schools playing in the same regional. You can "hover" the cursor over a given balloon an...

Quarterfinal play in the SEC featured three upsets out of the four games (see bracket ): Eighth-seeded Mississippi shutout No. 1 Florida, 2-0. Sixth-seeded LSU took care of No. 3 Tennessee, 6-2. Fifth-seeded Alabama edged No. 4 Texas A&M, 2-1. Only second-seeded Auburn held form, blanking No. 7 Kentucky, 2-0. In Friday's opening quarterfinal of the B1G tourney , top-seeded Minnesota dismissed No. 8 Northwestern, 5-1. Currently, fourth-seeded Illinois bats in the bottom of the second, leading No. 12 Penn State, 2-0... Illinois wins 3-0 .... Third-seeded Ohio State beat No. 6 Wisconsin , 3-2... Finally, seventh-seeded Michigan State ousted intrastate rival and No. 2 seed University of Michigan, 5-4.