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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 openers on Saturday get an extra game.

***

Here's tonight's SEC round-up. The conference's highly ranked teams held to form against their less-heralded opponents. One noteworthy development is LSU's doubleheader sweep over Florida; the Gators have been a bit of a roadblock to the conference's best teams thus far, taking a game each from Tennessee and Alabama earlier on.

Early morning

Louisiana Lafayette defeated Notre Dame in the late game last night, so today's match-ups in the championship brackets of Fullerton's Judi Garman Classic are set (copied and pasted from tournament website):

CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 1)
GAME 1: Michigan (A1) vs. Arizona (D2), Saturday 9 a.m.
GAME 2: Louisiana-Lafayette (B1) 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. Fresno State (B2), Saturday 4 p.m.

CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (Field 2)
GAME 5: Florida State (A3) vs. NC State (D4), Saturday 9 a.m.
GAME 6: Arizona State (B3) vs. Cal State Fullerton (C4), Saturday 11:15 a.m.
GAME 7: Pacific (D3) vs. Washington (A4), Saturday 1:30 p.m.
GAME 8: Texas (C3) vs. Notre Dame (B4), Saturday 4 p.m.

Such is the depth of college softball that some quite good teams are in the consolation bracket. In fact, if you didn't see the labels "championship" and "consolation," it might be difficult for someone taking the equivalent of a "blind taste test" to say which bracket is which, just from the listings of teams.

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