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.