Mike White, who coached Oregon to five appearances in the Women's College World Series, is the new coach at Texas , replacing Connie Clark. The void White left with the Ducks will be filled by Melyssa Lombardi , who for the past 21 years has been an assistant coach at Oklahoma, focusing on pitchers.

Lost perhaps to some softball observers amidst the excitement of the Women's College World Series was the news that University of Texas coach Connie Clark would not be returning to the Longhorns' dugout next season. Although the situation was portrayed as Clark choosing to resign, it was reported that the university had already decided not to renew her contract . Clark is the only head coach Longhorn softball has ever known. A former WCWS-champion pitcher at Cal State Fullerton and assistant coach at Florida State, Clark was hired to lead the newly created UT softball program that debuted on the field in 1997. Clark enjoyed great early success in Austin, as her Longhorn teams made the WCWS four times in the program's first 10 years (including in 1998, the team's second year of existence). Three of those appearances, in 2003, 2005, and 2006, occurred with pitching phenom Cat Osterman wearing the burnt orange. Clark's overall record at UT would be judged...

Washington scored three in the top of the first, but it's been all Florida State since then. The Seminoles lead 8-3 after four innings. FSU scored two in the bottom of the first and three each in the bottom of the second and fourth innings. Anna Shelnutt ( video ), Elizabeth Mason ( video ), and Jessie Warren ( video ) have all homered so far for Florida State... No further scoring, as Florida State wins 8-3 to capture the WCWS, the first team from the ACC to do so! The Seminoles' power-hitting is well-documented. Meghan King's performance in the circle must also be noted. According to this article from the FSU athletics website, she allowed "only one earned run in an astonishing 34 1/3 innings" during the WCWS. The NCAA gametracker for Game 2 is available here .

In what had been a perfectly chalky postseason -- all 16 national seeds winning their regionals and all top-eight seeds winning their super-regionals -- our WCWS championship round features the No. 5 and No. 6 seeds, Washington and Florida State, respectively. Go figure! Huskies batting in the bottom of the third, looking to score the game's first run(s) with the bases loaded and one out... K for second out... and K to end the threat... Still 0-0 heading into top of fourth... One-out walk and stolen-base give FSU a runner in scoring position... Another walk gives Seminoles runners on first and second... Fly-out for second out... Walk loads the bases... Grounder to SS who tags out runner in transit from second to third ends the half-inning. Still scoreless... Bottom 4: One-out walk gives Huskies a runner... Foul-out to left for second out... K ends inning... Top 5: FSU's Jessie Warren barely gets her bat on pitch at her shoestrings, but drives ball on one hop to the wall for ...

Washington becomes the first team to advance to the WCWS championship round, with a 3-0 victory over Oklahoma. The loss eliminates the Sooners and ends their streak of two straight national championships. Both of Oklahoma's losses in this year's World Series were shutouts at the hands of the Huskies. In the first Husky-Sooner match-up on Thursday, Gabbie Plain pitched 5 2/3 innings for Washington and Taran Alvelo 1 1/3. Today, Alvelo went the distance. UCLA (needing one win to advance) and Florida State (needing two) are now underway. The Bruins are the visitors in this first game... UCLA takes a 1-0 lead in the top of the third... Bruins batting in top of fifth... Unusual play, as liner off FSU pitcher's foot deflects up into the air and caught by third-baseperson for first out. Not totally clear if ball hit the ground before pitcher's foot, but there is no replay review... Sharp single to right gives Seminoles runner on first with none out, bottom of fifth... K f...

It's called Survival Saturday, because every team playing today enters with one loss and hence, you either win to survive our head home. In the first game, Oklahoma leads Arizona State 2-0, as the Sun Devils bat in the bottom of the seventh... ASU gets the leadoff runner on base, as the Sooners' catcher, after picking up a short blooper in front of home plate, has the ball slip out of her hand as she tries to throw to first... A strikeout and a bunt result in a runner on second with two out... Another K ends the game and the Sun Devils' season... Oklahoma wins , ASU eliminated . In the second game, Florida State has just broken things open a bit vs. Georgia. A one-out single in the bottom of the fifth drives home runners from second and third, making it 6-2 Seminoles... 7-2 FSU is your final. Georgia eliminated. The next game, at 6:00 pm Central, will be a rematch of last year's championship series, Oklahoma vs. Florida! One of these teams is going home a lot ear...

Tonight's play features two games, each matching winners from yesterday. In tonight's opener -- just underway -- No. 1 seed Oregon is facing conference-mate and No. 5 seed Washington. Oregon is the visiting team in this game, despite the higher seed. The Ducks swept three games from the Huskies in Seattle (April 27-29), so it would be a major upset if Oregon lost tonight. However, one never knows in a one-game context. Oregon strands a runner at second in the top of the first... Pretty uneventful game until bottom of the fifth. At that point, U-Dub gets leadoff single, followed by botched force-play at second on infield grounder, putting Huskies at the corners with none out... Bunt-attempt popped-up and caught for first out... Walk to load bases... Attempted force at home-plate on grounder to short botched, giving Washington a 1-0 lead. Not sure if Oregon could have gotten runner out at home even with well-executed throw and catch... Single to right drives home two (the seco...

Oregon's Miranda Elish (rhymes with "relish") delivers a called strike to Arizona State's Kindra Hackbarth and the opening game of the 2018 WCWS is officially underway! After a leadoff single by Hackbarth, followed by two outs, DeNae Chatman delivers a two-run homer for the Sun Devils in the top of the first... Oregon has scored in every inning but one, so far, and leads ASU 11-5 in the bottom of the sixth. Hayley Cruse's two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth gave Oregon some breathing room, expanding a 6-5 lead to 8-5. A three-run shot by the Ducks' Shannon Rhodes in the sixth is the most recent damage... Sun Devils down to their final three outs in the top of the seventh... First two get on for ASU... Single brings home a run, making it 11-6... Force at third for first out (replay suggests runner might have been safe)... Strike out for second out... and another K to end game... Oregon wins 11-6. Game 2 -- Washington vs. Oklahoma -- is underway. The Hus...

A long Saturday of softball is now complete, as is the field for the Women's College World Series. The following chart and the commentary below provides greater detail. ESPN's announcers for the LSU-Florida State game have just pointed out that the top eight national seeds will all be going to Oklahoma City. To me, the major story line is how the SEC, which theoretically could have placed seven teams in the WCWS, will instead be sending the minimum two (i.e., SEC representation in the World Series was guaranteed via the Florida-Texas A&M and Georgia-Tennessee super-regional match-ups). The Pac-12 will have four teams in OKC (Oregon, UCLA, Washington, and Arizona State). The remaining two teams are Oklahoma (Big 12) and Florida State (ACC). Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Oregon (1) vs. Kentucky (16) UK UO UO Florida (2) vs. Texas A&M (15) UFL A&M UFL UCLA (3) vs. Arizona (14) UCLA UCLA --- Oklahoma (4) vs. Arkansas (13) OU OU --- (5) Washington vs...

Based on the NCAA bracket , I have prepared my annual super-regionals chart (below). Links to game articles appear in the chart. Running commentary appears below the chart. Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Oregon (1) vs. Kentucky (16) UK UO Florida (2) vs. Texas A&M (15) UFL A&M UCLA (3) vs. Arizona (14) UCLA UCLA --- Oklahoma (4) vs. Arkansas (13) OU (5) Washington vs. (12) Alabama UW Florida St. (6) vs. (11) LSU LSU Georgia (7) vs. Tennessee (10) UGA Arizona St. (8) vs. South Carolina (9) ASU Series in italics began Thursday. All of the other series begin Friday. Friday Night UCLA is the first team to clinch a spot in the Women's College World Series, with a 3-2 win over Arizona to sweep the teams' series. The Wildcats scored two in the bottom of the first, with the Bruins countering with a run each in the second, third, and fourth innings...

The 16 nationally seeded teams are doing well in the regionals, but a couple are not out of the woods yet. Most of the games in the Southeast and Midwest are over now, but a full slate in the West remains. The NCAA has a nice website for following the brackets. I'm also maintaining a summary below with links to game articles and Twitter tweets. Regional winners highlighted in bold. LATE-NIGHT UPDATE: All 16 nationally seeded teams have advanced to the super-regionals. 1. Oregon , whose regional began a day earlier than the others, wrapped things up yesterday with no runs allowed in regional play. 2. Florida is just getting underway vs. Ohio State after a rain delay , as the Gators seek to close things out. UF leads 1-0. Aleshia Ocasio allows no hits and Florida adds three more runs to advance to the super-regionals with a 4-0 win. 3. UCLA will need to beat Cal State Fullerton twice today, after the Titans shocked the Bruins yesterday. In Sunday's first game betwee...

As is traditional here at the College Softball Blog, the assignments for the 16 NCAA softball regionals are depicted in the three maps below (created with BatchGeo ). The first map shows six regionals in color-coded fashion, listed alphabetically by host school: Alabama (No. 12 national seed), Arizona (14), Arizona State (8), Arkansas (13), Florida (2), and Florida State (6). Simply hover your cursor over any of the balloon shapes to see the name of the team. View 2018 softball regionals 1 in a full screen map The second map depicts five regionals: Georgia (7), Kentucky (16), LSU (11), Oregon (1), and Oklahoma (4). View 2018 softball regionals 2 in a full screen map The third map shows the remaining five regionals: South Carolina (9), Texas A&M (15), Tennessee (10), UCLA (3), and Washington (5). View 2018 softball regionals 3 in a full screen map The dominant theme of Selection Sunday would have to be the strength of the SEC. For the second straight year, all 13 ...

Washington continues to struggle against top-notch Pac-12 opponents. This past weekend, the Huskies were swept by Oregon , extending U-Dub's conference losing streak to six games. Florida, with a win last week over Top-Ten opponent Florida State, and a series win (two games to one) over LSU , has edged up to No. 4 in both national polls.

The big news of the weekend was UCLA's three-game sweep over Washington in Los Angeles, which vaulted the Bruins from No. 3 to No. 1 in both national polls and dropped the Huskies from No. 1 in both polls to No. 4. Oregon is second and Oklahoma third in both polls. Within the UCLA-Washington series, a very controversial moment occurred in Saturday's middle game of the series. With the score tied 2-2 in the top of the sixth, two outs and runners on first and second, U-Dub's Taylor Van Zee hit a high drive down the right-field foul-line that appeared to land on the line or just inside it in fair territory. The two runners easily made it home. However, the ball was called foul, Van Zee was ultimately retired, and the half-inning ended with the score 2-2. UCLA ended up winning 3-2 on a walk-off home-run by Madeline Jelenicki. A fierce denunciation of the umpiring is available here on this In the Circle podcast . Scores of the other two UCLA-Washington games were 3-0 on F...

The Washington Huskies remained No. 1 in both major national polls, coming off a three-game sweep of Utah. U-Dub has now won its last 10 games. The Huskies' toughest part of the season will arrive in 10 days , with series at No. 4/4 UCLA (April 20-22) and at home vs. No. 3/3 Oregon (April 27-29). The Ducks were impressive this past weekend in sweeping Arizona . No. 2/2 Oklahoma extended its winning streak to 24 games with a sweep of Iowa State. OU (from the Big 12) and No. 13/8 Florida State (from the ACC) are the only teams in the Top 15 not from either the Pac-12 or SEC.

The No. 1 University of Washington bounced back from its series loss a week ago at Arizona State with a sweep of the University of Arizona . The first two games of the series were eight-inning affairs.

Washington and UCLA were both undefeated and ranked No. 1 and 2, respectively, in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll before last Friday. However, once the first weekend of Pac-12 play was over, each had two losses. The Huskies lost two out of three to Arizona State, whereas the Bruins did likewise at Oregon. The University of Arizona swept three games from Utah, with the closest margin in any of the games being three runs. The standings were also shaken up in the SEC. Florida, which was No. 2 in the USA Today /NFCA poll and 3-0 in conference after sweeping Kentucky March 9-11, lost two of three games to Georgia, including one via run-rule . Tennessee, which swept Missouri the weekend of March 9-11 and then breezed through mediocre opposition in a Hawai'i tournament this past weekend, has now jumped to No. 2 in both national polls. The Vols (30-1) have some good wins this season (Arizona State, Oregon), but their real proving ground will come against top SEC competition. Tennes...

The Pac-12 (which only has nine schools that field softball teams) has dominated the national rankings thus far, with five teams in the Top 10 of the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll: No. 1 Washington (27-0), No. 2 UCLA (24-0), No. 6 Oregon (23-4), No. 9 Arizona (21-2), and No. 10 ASU (21-2). The other major poll, USA Today /NFCA, has similar rankings, but with UCLA one notch and ASU three notches lower. Accordingly, it is with great excitement that Pac-12 conference play begins this weekend with four series (each three games) beginning today or Saturday: Washington at ASU UCLA at Oregon Utah at Arizona Cal at Oregon State Stanford, as the odd team out, has the weekend off.  Further details on the above series is available at the Pac-12 website .

No. 2/2 Florida breezed through its three games in the Judi Garman Classic, closing with a 4-0 no-hit win over No. 8/9 Baylor. Two other Gator games were cancelled due to inclement weather . The team that may have helped itself the most in the tournament is Michigan. The Wolverines came in ranked No. 23/25 after an 8-6 start. However, Michigan went 5-0 at the Garman, including wins over Baylor and No. 17/18 Louisiana-Lafayette . Elsewhere, No. 1/1 Washington moved to 23-0 with five wins in the Husky Classic, including two over No. 11/11 Alabama ( here and here ). The nation's only other undefeated squad, No. 3/3 UCLA,  improved to 19-0 with four wins in the San Diego Classic. The Bruins' schedule hasn't been that tough so far, but one of their wins this weekend was over a ranked team , No. 20/21 Minnesota. No. 8/9 Arizona took two of three from unranked Texas in Austin.

No. 2/2 Florida heads a thin field at this year's Judi Garman Classic this weekend. No. 8/9 Baylor is the only other Top 10 team making the trip to Fullerton, California.

The Mary Nutter Classic Win-Loss Wheel, which I hadn't used for a few years, is back! Tennessee, with the best record during the tournament (6-0), is at 12 o'clock. As you move clockwise, the teams' records gradually get worse. Finally, when you approach 12:00 again, you see the teams with the worst ledgers. You may click on the graphic to enlarge it. A master list of results is available here . As can be seen, four teams were undefeated, with UCLA, Arizona, and Washington (all 5-0) joining Tennessee in that department. Each of these teams had a signature win at the Nutter. Tennessee defeated a Top 5 Oregon squad, Arizona beat another Top 5 team, namely Oklahoma, UCLA topped No. 7/8 LSU, and Washington knocked off No. 6/9 Texas A&M. The big disappointment would have to be Oklahoma State, a Top 20 squad that went 1-4.

The more extensive weekend of the annual Mary Nutter Classic ( 32 teams rather than 16) is now underway in Cathedral City, California (near Palm Springs). Among the participating squads are the No. 2-6 (Oregon, Washington, UCLA, Oklahoma, and Auburn, in that order)  and 8-9 (LSU, Texas A&M) teams in the latest ESPN.com/USA Softball poll. Florida, who is not in the Mary Nutter, is No. 1 in that poll. The other major national poll, by USA Today /NFCA, sees things a little differently, with Washington at No. 1. Oklahoma dropped substantially from its previous No. 1 status, due to an unimaginable loss to Boston University last week (BU's current record is 4-4, with losses to Bethune-Cookman, Ohio State, Ball State, and New Mexico State). Oregon also has one loss, a nine-inning affair vs. No. 15 Mississippi. No. 1/2 Florida also has one loss , but it came in a three-game series the Gators won at Louisiana-Lafayette. UF is hosting the Aquafina Invitational this weekend, wit...

Two-time defending Women's College World Series champion Oklahoma dominates the preseason polls , holding the No. 1 spot heading into the 2018 season. The Sooners captured all the first-place votes in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll and all but one in the USA Today /NFCA poll. As the above-linked article notes: Oklahoma returns all nine of its 2017 All-Big 12 honorees from a squad that went 61-9 overall, 17-1 in the Big 12 and won the program's third national title in the last five years (fourth overall). Returning first-team All-Big 12 selections are junior infielder Shay Knighten, senior pitcher Paige Lowary, sophomore utility player Nicole Mendes (unanimous pick) and senior pitcher Paige Parker. Returning second-team All-Big 12 honorees are junior outfielder Falepolima Aviu, junior infielder Caleigh Clifton, senior outfielder Nicole Pendley and junior infielder Sydney Romero. Mendes and pitcher Mariah Lopez were members of the 2017 Big 12 All-Freshman Team. Florida and ...