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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.

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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.

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