Skip to main content

Top Performing Teams at Mary Nutter Classic

Here are some of the top performing teams at this weekend's Mary Nutter Classic in Cathedral City, California, near Palm Springs:
  • No. 1/2 Oklahoma breezed through its five games, shutting out the opponent in four of them. The Sooners' biggest-name opponent was No. 14/19 Arizona.
  • UCLA went 5-0, with wins over No. 4 Tennessee, Maryland, Oklahoma State, No. 10/11 LSU, and Nevada. These wins should catapult the No. 13/16 Bruins into the national Top 10.
  • Unranked Northwestern (5-0), whose victims included Tennessee
  • Oregon State, which went 5-0 (although not against any elite teams) and has now won 11 straight overall. The Beavers are unranked, although they are listed as receiving some votes for the Top 25 in the USA Today/NFCA poll.
  • Cal went 4-0, although the No. 8 Golden Bears did not face elite opposition.
  • No. 7 Missouri went 3-0, edging its new SEC rival, No. 5 Florida 4-3 in 12 innings. The loss was the Gators' only one of the tourney. Separate from the Nutter Classic, Mizzou rounded out its trip to southern California with a doubleheader split at Cal State Fullerton.
  • LSU, which went 4-1, including a win over Arizona.
  • No. 9/11 Oregon, which concluded its play late Sunday afternoon, went 5-0.
  • No. 22 Washington went undefeated (4-0) against collegiate competition, losing only to the USSSA Pride, a professional team with many star players familiar to longtime college-softball fans.
Finally, in terms of individual honors, Stanford frosh Kelsey Stevens pitched a perfect game over Virginia.

Updated late Sunday night.

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