Skip to main content

Roundup of 2022 St. Pete/Clearwater Elite and on to the Mary Nutter Classic

Last weekend, we had the St. Pete/Clearwater Elite Invitational. I created the following chart to show how all of the 16 teams did. Green shading indicates wins (with "d" denoting that the listed team "defeated" a given opponent) and pink indicates losses (with "l" denoting that it "lost" to a given opponent). The games are not listed in the order played; rather, I grouped all of a team's wins and all of a team's losses together, to create a gradient from the most successful teams at the top to the least successful at the bottom. Finally, you should note that teams differed in the number of games played, from four to six.


As can be seen, Florida State was the only team to go undefeated, topped off with a 4-3 extra-inning win over UCLA. Four teams -- Auburn, Washington, South Florida, and Northwestern -- each had only one loss. Two major disappointments were Oklahoma State (2-3) and Texas (0-5), both of which had been ranked in the national top 10.

UCLA (3-2), suffered two walk-off losses, to Northwestern as well as to Florida State. Potentially far more damaging to the Bruins (pending a medical report) is the apparent knee injury two-time All-America outfielder Aaliyah Jordan suffered vs. Texas when she landed awkwardly on the first-base bag running out a hit. Jordan, whom coach Kelly Inouye-Perez called the "big heart of our program," tore an ACL in the past. No official diagnosis has been reported on the current injury, as best I can tell.

* * *

UCLA and four other teams from the St. Pete/Clearwater Elite Invitational (Northwestern, Tennessee, Texas Tech, and Washington) now move on to the 27-team Mary Nutter Classic in the Palm Springs, California, area. Among the teams waiting for them will be No. 1 Oklahoma.

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.

2024 WCWS -- Day 6

Oklahoma has kept its quest for a fourth straight WCWS title alive with a 6-5 eight-inning win over Florida to advance to the championship round. The Sooners will take on Texas in a two-out-of-three series beginning Wednesday night. Florida held a 5-2 lead after three innings and looked well on its way to beating OU for the second straight day, which would have eliminated the Sooners and taken the Gators to the final round. However, UF scored no further runs, whereas Oklahoma chipped away with two in the fourth, one in the sixth, and one in the eighth. The final run came via Jayda Coleman's opposite-field walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the eighth.  Sooner starter Kelly Maxwell went the distance, allowing only four hits. Three of those hits were home runs within the first three innings; the only other Gator hit was an infield single in the top of the sixth. Maxwell also walked five and struck out eight. Florida starter Keagan Rothrock also went the distance, allowing 1...