Skip to main content

Arizona Pounding Pac-12 Foes

The University of Arizona has moved up in the national rankings to anywhere from No. 3 to No. 5, depending on the specific poll. The reason is very clear: The Wildcats' 15-0 record in Pac-12 play, nearly all by blowout margins. Granted, U of A has not yet faced its two toughest conference opponents, UCLA and Washington. Still, what Arizona has done so far is very impressive.

The following chart (which you can click to enlarge) shows the score and opponent in each of the Wildcats' Pac-12 games in each little "softball," plotted along the horizontal axis according to Arizona's margin of victory.


In these 15 conference games, U of A has scored an average of 9.53 runs, while allowing 0.93 runs, on average.

For the season overall -- in which Arizona is 38-7 -- several players have compiled gaudy statistics. Offensively, I consider the two most important statistics to be slugging percentage and on-base average. Combined, they yield OPS (on-base plus slugging). As shown in the following table, five Wildcat hitters are putting up stratospheric numbers in these areas.

Player Slugging Perc. On-Base Avg. OPS
Reyna Carranco (Jr., 2B) .655 .481 1.136
Jessie Harper (Jr., SS) .888 .432 1.320
Alyssa Palomino (Jr., CF) .796 .465 1.261
Malia Martinez (Jr., 3B) .674 .430 1.104
Dejah Mulipola (Jr., C) .916 .500 1.416

In the circle, senior Taylor McQuillin (1.23) and junior Alyssa Denham (1.86) have led the way with their low Earned Run Averages (ERA).

Popular posts from this blog

Few minutes after 6:00 pm Central: We now have our eighth team for the Women's College World Series, Oregon State (in the postings below, all WCWS qualifiers are depicted in bold). The Beavers defeated Cal 3-0 and then 1-0 today, to take the teams' super-regional series 2-1. 4:40 pm Central: We have the identities of two more teams going to the WCWS (bringing the total to seven), but Oregon State has stayed alive against Cal, forcing a third and deciding game to determine the one remaining team for the World Series. Leave it to the Beavers! Here are the two teams (in bold) that have earned bids to Oklahoma City thus far today: Tennessee , which edged Michigan 1-0 in what must have been a very dramatic finish to those who saw it live. The reason I say must have been is that ESPN cut away to show a live Barry Bonds at-bat in his quest for 715 home runs, a number that would surpass Babe Ruth for second on the all-time list. Sure enough, Bonds blasted one deep into the c...
Read more

2012 Geospatial Map of NCAA Tournament

Here is my annual geospatial map of the NCAA regional assignments. The official NCAA bracket is listed here . Each of the 16 regional sites has its own color code. For example, the geographically compact University of Florida region, hosted by the No. 5 seed Gators and also featuring Central Florida, South Florida, and Florida Gulf Coast, depicts the teams in blue boxes with orange letters. Two of the most spread-out regions are:  The one hosted by top-seed Cal, whose visitors include Arkansas, Iona (NY), and Boston University. These teams are shown in dark-blue boxes with yellow lettering. The University of Washington (No. 16 seed) region, whose participants (depicted in purple boxes with yellow letters) include Texas Tech, Maryland, and Harvard. Overall, the seedings are about what I had expected them to be (other years have presented greater surprises). Conference highlights (and lowlights) include: Of the nine Pac 12 schools that field softball teams, eight got in t...
Read more
Stanford swept the Oregon schools to hold first place in the Pac 10 at 5-1. Washington swept the Arizona schools , leaving the Huskies, Sun Devils, and Wildcats tied for second, each at 4-2. UCLA edged Arizona 3-2 on Sunday to break a four-game conference losing streak.
Read more