Michigan bounced back from its loss to Northwestern in last week's Louisville tournament (which would be considered a non-conference game), by routing the Wildcats 11-4 in the teams' Big 10 opener in Evanston. The Wolverines showcased their youthful talent, with contributions from three freshmen, hitters Roya St. Clair and Angela Findlay (the sister of slugger Samantha Findlay) and pitcher Nikki Nemitz. For this year's Michigan softballers, their slogan may have to be modified from "Go Blue" to "Baby Blue!" In Pac 10 opening action, Arizona State bedeviled UCLA, 6-0, and the University of Arizona blanked Washington by the same score.

This upcoming weekend of college softball will arguably be one of the best of the entire regular season. This assertion rests on three points: 1. League play begins in the Big 10 and Pac 10, meaning that all four "power conferences" (the Big 12 and SEC being the others) have now entered this stage. 2. As elaborated below, the Big 10 and Pac 10 each have some excellent match-ups for their opening weekends of conference action. 3. The Big 12, which opened conference play last week, will feature a "Clash of the Titans," with Texas A&M playing at Oklahoma in single games Saturday and Sunday. Saturday afternoon's contest will be televised on ESPN2 . Let's go back to the opening of conference play in the two remaining conferences. In the Big 10, Northwestern hosts Michigan for games on Friday and Saturday afternoons. Just a few days ago, the Wildcats defeated the Wolverines in extra innings at the Louisville tournament. UM and NU have each played in the c

During a break in one of the March Madness NCAA basketball games this afternoon, I was doing some channel surfing and came upon a Fox Sports cable telecast of the finale of this weekend's Alabama-LSU softball series. The Tigers won today's game 3-0, although things were a little more precarious for LSU than the score suggests, as Alabama got multiple runners on base in the top halves of the sixth and seventh innings. In fact, the Crimson Tide's offensive totals in the box score reflected the unusual situation of a team getting 10 hits, but no runs. Alabama hurler Chrissy Owens (16-1) absorbed her first loss of the season. With the win, LSU took the three-game series, 2-1. Elsewhere in the SEC , Florida swept its series with Georgia in a battle of nationally ranked squads, No. 1 Tennessee continues to roll (sweeping Arkansas this weekend), and Kentucky's Brooke Marnitz (facing Mississippi this weekend) continues her hot hitting. In statistics as of Saturday that

A few results for the day... Michigan's offense took off on spring break, as the Wolverines went 15 consecutive innings, combined over two games, without scoring a run. As a result, UM dropped decisions to Northwestern, 2-1 (9 inn.), and to Liberty, 2-0, in the Louisville tournament . The host Cardinals (3-0) appear well positioned to win the tournament, with only a Sunday game left against Michigan to conclude the event. Northwestern is 1-1, with games left tomorrow against Cal and Liberty. However, even if Louisville lost and Northwestern swept its two games, the teams would end up tied at 3-1, and Louisville defeated Northwestern head-to-head on opening day. Michigan is 1-2, as are Liberty and Cal. *** Oklahoma (No. 3 and 4 in the two national polls) continued its roll, blanking Texas 7-0 in Austin. LSU split a doubleheader with No. 2 nationally ranked Alabama. Here's a summary of the rest of SEC action (nothing much out of the ordinary).

Yesterday, Oklahoma's surging Sooners came into Lubbock and swept a rain-delayed doubleheader from Texas Tech, 7-0 and 7-3. According to the OU webpage's summary of Game 1 , Sooner pitching ace Lauren Eckermann "recorded her 20th win of the season. The junior added to her perfect record with a season-high 12 strikeouts and only gave up five hits while recording her seventh shut out of the season." Oklahoma next faces Texas in Austin in Saturday and Sunday contests. A little further down the road, the nation will get to see a match-up of the top two teams in the Big 12, as ESPN2 will televise the visit of Texas A&M to Oklahoma on Saturday, March 31 at 2 p.m. Central. *** Today in Louisville, Kentucky, the Women 4 Women tournament got underway. Michigan and Northwestern are both in this tournament, and it seems a bit odd to have two teams from the same conference in such a small (five-team) event. The Wolverines and Wildcats will face each other Saturday morn

Oklahoma won the Judi Garman Classic in Fullerton, California, shutting out Arizona 11-0 in a five-inning, run-rule game. According to this article from the OU athletics site: It was the first time the Wildcats had been run ruled in 12 seasons when they lost to UCLA on April 16, 1995 (6-1 in six innings). The Sooners really had to eke one out in eight innings in their semifinal game against DePaul. Oklahoma will be here in Lubbock this Thursday, March 22 to open Big 12 conference play with a double-header against Texas Tech. DePaul, a participant in the 2005 NCAA Women's College World Series, had five losses in the early weeks of the present season, but went on a 10-game winning streak before losing to Oklahoma. I have added a link to the Blue Demons' team page in the right-hand column. *** Here's your Sunday SEC round-up . There did not appear to be any upsets in confernce play today.

Evening Here's how things stand regarding the quest for the championship of the Judi Garman Classic (copied and pasted from tournament website ). CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 1) GAME 1: Michigan 1, Arizona 2 GAME 2: Louisiana-Lafayette 6, Penn State 5 GAME 3: Oklahoma 8, Cal State Northridge 0 (5 inn.) GAME 4: DePaul 4, Fresno State 1 Arizona (V) vs. Louisiana-Lafayette (H), Sunday 8:30 a.m. Oklahoma (H) vs. DePaul (V), Sunday 10:30 a.m. Championship Game, Sunday 1 p.m. As a University of Michigan graduate (Ph.D., 1989), I have to say that the loss to Arizona would seem to be a major missed opportunity for the Wolverines to strengthen their seeding potential for the NCAA tournament later this spring. The UM did not play a non-conference schedule that would get it too many games with top Pac-10 teams, so this could have been a big win. The Wolverines then dropped a 5-2 contest to fellow Big 10 team, Penn State, in an extra round presumably designed to let teams that lost their open

Late night The big story from the Judi Garman Classic at Cal State Fullerton is that highly ranked Arizona State (No. 2 and 4 in the national polls) dropped two games. The Sun Devils lost first to Fresno State by a 6-1 score, and then to Louisiana-Lafayette , 2-0 in eight innings. There's one more game still going on tonight, between Notre Dame and Louisiana-Lafayette. This game evidently has implications for the standings of Pool B, which are needed to complete tomorrow's schedule. This can be seen in the schedule below, which I've copied and pasted from the tournament website . CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 1) GAME 1: Michigan (A1) vs. Arizona (D2), Saturday 9 a.m. GAME 2: Pool B First Place vs. Penn State (C2), Saturday 11:15 a.m. GAME 3: Oklahoma (D1) vs. Cal State Northridge (A2), Saturday 1:30 p.m. GAME 4: DePaul (C1) vs. Second Place Pool B, Saturday 4 p.m. CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 2) GAME 5: Florida State (A3) vs. NC State (D4), Saturday 9 a.m. GAM

Several games have been completed today in the Judi Garman Classic at Cal State Fullerton. The headline story is Arizona State's Katie Burkhart pitching a perfect game in the Sun Devils' 3-0 victory over Notre Dame. In other action, Michigan upped its record to 21-1 with a 6-3 win over Washington. The widely anticipated game between Arizona and Oklahoma is scheduled to start at 8:30 Pacific, but tournaments often run behind. Given that I'm in the Central timezone, I probably won't have a score tonight, but you can check the tournament website (linked above) or either of the teams' sites (in the links section on the right).

Evening I just finished listening to the conclusion of Game 2 of the Alabama at Florida doubleheader via the Crimson Tide's internet radio service . Bama won the first game 6-2, but Florida rebounded to hand the Tide its first loss of the season in the nightcap. An eight-run Gator inning somewhere in the middle of the game was more than enough to "swamp" Alabama, 8-4. The Tide had the tying run at the plate in the top of the seventh with two out, but a grounder to the pitcher ended matters. Alabama's top pitcher, Chrissy Owens, apparently was not the starter in Game 2, as the radio announcer alluded to Owens' coming in to relieve another pitcher. The Alabama and Florida team pages (see links section on the right) should have summaries of tonight's action posted at some point later in the evening. These would probably be the best places to seek more details. Morning It's an unusually busy Wednesday this week, with a major tournament starting tonight and

Late night I had been checking the Arizona State and Texas Tech team pages tonight to find out the score of their game this afternoon, but neither site had any results. Fortunately, the user-updated " Scoreboard " thread on Ultimate College Softball had frequent updates, and I got the score I was looking for: ASU 12, Texas Tech 3 in 5 innings (presumably shortened due to the run/mercy rule). The UCS page also brought to my attention Arizona's visit to Baylor for a tournament, which yielded three games between the Wildcats and Bears. I hadn't been paying attention to either team this weekend. As I learned, Baylor more than held its own against Arizona, which sent Baylor's coach "over the moon." From the Baylor article : "We took our program to a new level today," [said] head coach Glenn Moore. "To win two-of-three over a softball program like Arizona is huge. It was probably the best weekend in Getterman Stadium history." Finally,

No. 1 Tennessee suffered its first loss of the season, splitting today's doubleheader with Florida as league play opened up in the Southeastern Conference. The official SEC softball page summarizes all of today's action in the league, so with no further ado, check it out .

The major story in college softball this weekend, in my view, is the opening of conference play in the SEC, a good 2-3 weeks before the other major conferences start their league play. As gleaned from the composite schedule on the SEC softball page, this weekend's match-ups are as follows: March 10 Mississippi State at Alabama* (2) 1/3 pm South Carolina at Arkansas* (2) 1/3 pm Auburn at Kentucky* (2) 12/2 pm Tennessee at Florida* (2) 12/2 pm [Georgia at Florida State Tournament TBA] LSU at Ole Miss* (2) 1/3 pm March 11 Mississippi State at Alabama* 1:30 pm South Carolina at Arkansas* 1 pm Auburn at Kentucky* 12 pm Tennessee at Florida* 12 pm [Georgia at Florida State Tournament TBA] LSU at Ole Miss* 1 pm Vanderbilt does not field a softball team, leaving one SEC school without a conference opponent at any given time. As I've bracketed above, Georgia will not be involved in conference play this weekend, instead participating in the Florida State tournament. Tennessee (a cons

In what looked to be one of the better midweek match-ups thus far in the season, UCLA headed down to Cal State Fullerton tonight to take on the Titans. Fullerton senior pitcher Candice Baker had just received national player of the week honors from two separate organizations for her superb outings in wins over Stanford and Oregon State. A trifecta against Pac-10 opponents was not to be for Baker, however, as the Bruins lit her (and the scoreboard) up. UCLA scored seven runs in the 3 2/3 innings Baker pitched, en route to an 8-1 victory . In all, the Bruins belted five homers. According to the linked article in the previous paragraph, the game drew over 1,000 fans, a nice development for the sport.

Illinois State, which has been right on the border of the national top 25, with a No. 25 ranking in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll and a position just outside the top 25 in the USA Today/NFCA poll, should be moving on up after this weekend's games. The Redbirds played in the Stacy Winsberg Memorial Tournament at UCLA and went 4-1 , including a win over the host Bruins and two over nationally ranked Florida; the one ISU loss was to Cal State Long Beach, which the Redbirds avenged later in the tournament. UCLA went 3-1 in the same tournament, with two wins over Loyola University Chicago and one over Florida. The Bruins gave up only five runs in the four games. However, reflecting some difficulties experienced in previous weeks by Anjelica Selden, now in her third year as the Bruins' No. 1 pitcher, there's a thread on the UCLA sports discussion board asking the question, "What's wrong with Jelly?" The initial commentary presents a number of statistics about

Some highlights from this weekend's play thus far, starting with heroics in the pitching circle... Cal State Fullerton's Candice Baker threw a no-hitter against nationally ranked Stanford (No. 8 and 9 in the two polls) on Friday, with the Titans winning 1-0. Also, Tennessee pitcher Monica Abbott shut out Tennessee Tech 4-0 on Saturday, to break the NCAA Division I career wins record with her 152nd victory. And a quick check-up on some of the nation's other highly ranked teams... LSU lost to Washington , 3-1 in nine innings, in the teams' first meeting of the Husky Classic. Arizona St. lost for only the second time this season, falling 8-7 to UC Santa Barbara on Friday. Texas A&M is undefeated so far in the tournament it is hosting, but needed a walk-off grand-slam from Amanda Scarborough to beat Illinois 7-5 on Saturday. Scarborough, who played first base in this game, is also a pitcher.

After three straight weekends of large tournaments, each featuring several of the nation's elite teams, the intensity seems to be lower this weekend, with a bunch of smaller tournaments and head-to-head series. Perhaps the best match-up of the weekend will occur as part of the Husky Classic in Seattle, as LSU, No. 6 and 7 in the two national polls, will take on its first ranked opponent in the University of Washington (No. 14 and 15). After LSU plays a pair vs. Portland State, the Tigers and Huskies will play three times ( LSU schedule ). No. 1 Tennessee travels from Knoxville to Chattanooga for the Frost Classic , against what appear to be heavily overmatched opponents. As noted in the linked document, an individual milestone may occur during the event: History could also be made in Chattanooga as Lady Vol senior pitcher Monica Abbott stands just two wins from breaking the NCAA Division I career victory mark of 151 held by former Southern Miss hurler Courtney Blades. The 6-3 lef