Skip to main content
END-OF-THE-DAY UPDATE

Day 1 of the NCAA Women's College World Series ended a short time ago, with UCLA edging Pac-10 rival Arizona, 1-0. Both teams started off a little shaky in the field, resulting in numerous baserunners for whomever was batting at the time. The Bruins got a key first-inning hit by Amanda Kamekona to drive in the game's only run. After a few innings, both starting pitchers -- UCLA's Anjelica "Jelly" Selden and U of A's Taryne Mowatt -- settled down, and there were few offensive threats by either team the rest of the way.

In the first game of the evening session, it looked like Alabama's strategy of pitching around Arizona State slugger Kaitlin Cochran was going to work, as the Tide took a 1-0 lead into the Sun Devils' at-bats in the top of the seventh. Other ASU players started getting key hits, however, and the result was a 3-1 Sun Devil win.

The two afternoon games took place while I was at the office, so I only obtained periodic score updates on the computer and did not follow the games closely. In these contests, unseeded Louisiana-Lafayette upset No. 1-seed Florida, 3-2, and Texas A&M pushed across a run in the sixth to get by Virginia Tech, 1-0.

An ESPN.com article summarizing all of the Opening Day games is available here. Also, you can visit the team-specific webpages via the links on the right, to get more information on the games of your favorite school.

Two games will be played on Friday, both in the evening, featuring today's winning teams. Texas A&M will take on Louisiana-Lafayette, followed by another all-Pac 10 match-up, between Arizona State and UCLA.

EARLY REPORT

The NCAA Women's College World Series will be getting underway momentarily (at 12:00 Central), with top-seeded Florida taking on Louisiana-Lafayette. This game will be followed, in order, by Texas A&M-Virginia Tech, Alabama-Arizona State, and UCLA-Arizona. These games will be televised on ESPN. The official NCAA bracket is available here.

ESPN.com's Graham Hays has an excellent team-by-team rundown of the series participants. As always, you can find additional information by looking at the individual teams' official websites via the links on the right-hand side of the present page.

Popular posts from this blog

Pitching Star NiJaree Canady Reportedly in the Transfer Portal

Stanford pitching ace NiJaree Canady has reportedly entered the transfer portal ( link ), having completed two seasons in the circle for the Cardinal. Stanford has made the WCWS in both of Canady's seasons on the team. Another school hit hard by the transfer portal is the University of Washington, with an exodus of eight Huskies . This list of the top ten players in the portal includes four from UW. Today is the final day of the 30-day window for players to enter the portal.

NiJaree Canady Transferring to -- of All Places -- Texas Tech

NiJaree Canady, whose sub-1.00 ERA helped lead Stanford to the Women's College World Series in both her years with the Cardinal, announced on July 24 that she is transferring to Texas Tech. I've lived in Lubbock for 27 years and can say that the town has been improving with a greater selection of restaurants and shops, and a new downtown performing arts center. Likewise, nice new facilities have been dotting the Texas Tech campus . Still, it seems unlikely that Canady would have become a Red Raider without the $1 million annual Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deal for her, made possible by the donation of a Texas Tech alumni couple. So stunning an event is this, even in the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics, that the New York Times  even ran a behind-the-scenes story on Canady's path to Texas Tech. I look forward to being in the stands to watch Canady pitch next spring, an opportunity I never expected to have.

Jordy Bahl Transferring from Oklahoma to Nebraska

The college softball world has thrown us a "Curve Bahl," if you will. Such is the unexpected news that Oklahoma ace Jordy Bahl has announced that she will transfer to the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Bahl is from the Omaha suburb of Papillion, Nebraska. Three thoughts jump out at me: Bahl was absolutely indispensable to the Sooners' 61-1 national championship season, coming up with numerous clutch strikeouts in tight tournament games against Clemson (super-regionals, Game 2 ) and Stanford ( WCWS semifinals ).    OU benefited greatly this season via the transfer portal, bringing in Haley Lee  from Texas A&M,  Alex Storako from Michigan, and Cydney Sanders and Alynah Torres from Arizona State. Bahl's transfer is the first major one in the modern portal era (to my knowledge) in the other direction. Nebraska becomes an instant national championship contender, in my mind. Other players around the country may find it attractive to join Bahl in Lincoln but even if