Saturday Softball Thread
Great story lines in today's game against Oklahoma...
The Romero sisters take each other on as Sierra's Younger sister is a freshman for Oklahoma.
Since we are done with the best-of-three format until the championship Michigan is the home team (as the top seed) correct? No more of that switching back-and-forth crap we saw in the regional and super regional I hope.
Hope that awful umpiring doesn't cost someone a game before this thing is over. The pitch trax made her look foolish last night.
Go blue!
the misuse of irony. There was nothing ironic about Michigan intentionally walking Sierra Romero's sister. :)
why would it matter when a team loses? Both would have a loss.
Let's say UCLA beats FSU right now. And let's make an assumption that Auburn is the best team in the country. UCLA would then have lost to the best team in the country (Auburn), then beat FSU.
If Oklahoma loses to Michigan they will have beaten Alabama and lost to Michigan.
So UCLA loses to Auburn and beats FSU. Oklahoma beat Alabama and loses to Michigan. The "losers bracket" is pretty arbitrary given my scenario. Seems pretty even to me.
Also, one could argue that it's better to play back to back as opposed to playing then cooling off for 10 hours, then having to warm up and get focused again.
Not everything is a conspiracy against Michigan (just the homeplate ump last night).
yikes, sorry, I thought from reading your post that the loser of tonight's game had to play the winner of this morning's game right atfterwards due to the rain postponement. My bad.
That said I still don't believe being in the loser's bracket right off the bat should result in that team being penalized any more than a team that wins their first game and then loses their 2nd.
FSU, you frauds.
1st inning grand slam by UCLA.
What a weird ass sequence.
FSU bunts, runner slides in to make it 4-4. Their catcher takes a hit and is slow getting up with the ball so the bunter tries to take second, she's chased down and tagged but the runner at 3rd scores while that chase happened so FSU is now up 5-4.
Gotta respect FSU's fight. Eating a grand slam in inning one of an elimination game would make it really easy to fold up & bow out meekly. Instead, now they're up 7-4 and looking pretty good. Now can UCLA battle back late?
UCLA just isn't very good. They shouldn't even be here.
If the NCAA put them in another super regional, they wouldn't be here. Neither would Oregon because Oregon gonna Oregon.
FSU all over it with the speed on the base paths. If we end up facing FSU at any point going forward, we will have to be very aware of that. Given that Falk doesn't have a great throw to 2nd, that could be a sore spot. Singles & walks are looking almost as good as doubles for the Seminoles in this game.
First 0-2 WCWS performance in UCLA history. Arizona didn't even make it. Talk about signs of the times.
Is it that the pool of HS players has changed that radically in a fre years? Or did TV money fuel an arms race of new facilities that are causing girls in the West to now go south?
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Combination of factors. The HS talent is getting more diverse (witness Michigan stars Sierra Lawrence & Megan Betsa, both from Georgia, for example), but the highest concentration of elite players still definitely comes from California. The pool is also way bigger now, so UCLA & Arizona can't just monopolize the top players. Every ranked team has a
The increased media attention & money invested has motivated a lot more schools to get serious about the sport, and that changes things a lot as well. Especially for schools South of the Mason/Dixon line, there are no structural obstacles to success, just culture & talent. Once the SEC decided they wanted to be good, they had the right climate to do well.
There's also the factor of coaching. When teams invest money, that means that coaching softball becomes an increasingly attractive option, and more & more highly talented people take that route. Michigan is the definition of a place where coaching has made the difference (although it was passion, not $$$ that drew Hutchins here). As a Northern team, we still suffer from the unfair schedule, but Hutchins sheer force of will has built a culture of incredibly resilient players who succeed despite the odds. Even now, we're a huge outlier as an elite Northern program. Minnesota has made strides lately, and Northwestern & Notre Dame field strong teams periodically, but no Northern team is at our level of consistent national success.
They're done and they're the first Pac-12 team to go 0-2.
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Only reason we are is because of the rain delays.
The eventual WS champion, IMO, will be one of the two teams playing tonight. I just hope it's ours. But Oklahoma is a tough contest. I have no doubt, though, that the Michigan women will be up for the challenge. Way back in February, of course, the U-M women put up a LOT of runs vs. this Oklahoma team -- but also gave up a lot, too (the first or second most all season?)
Hopefully, the offense can roll and Betsa can work some magic on the mound.
GO BLUE!
Judging by the small sample size, it would seem that the night games favor pitching and the afternoon games hitting. All the afternoon games so far have been rather high scoring. Yesterday, UM scored the only 2 runs in regulation (night games). Today AL & LSU were hitting the cover off the ball.
The ump's virtual strike zone didn't help matters. We'll see how it goes tonight.
Good chance that UM vs OK could meet up again in the finals.
I don't buy it. We played two nights game in our first two games of the WCWS last year and hit a grand slam in the first game and won 5-0, and then smashed UCLA in the second game putting up 10.
Okay, this nonsense with the rain around my house needs to stop within the next 90 minutes. It's fucking with my dish.
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http://www.vipleague.me/search/espn2.html
If memory serves me, click on the 2nd ESPN2 link and a window should open with a couple of streams. You'll have to try each one for streaming bandwith.
After waiting about 30 seconds, you have click on some hidden blue "x's" to close the adds.
Good luck
Not to get too far ahead, but I'd like to see UGA win this game. If we don't win tonight, I'd rather face FSU and then UGA twice instead of Auburn twice. If we do win tonight, I like our chances to make the final regardless, and the likely matchup there would be UGA (16 seed) or Oklahoma (Romero-Romero for all the marbles). Both appealing options.
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OK, so I get why they ended the inning and called the double play. I think it was absolutely the right call. But then why the hell does the run count? On a normal double play that run doesn't count.
only if it was a force out on the double play. If you've got an unusual double play that isn't a force out, then it comes down to timing of the final out vs. the player touching home.
OK I may be totally off here, but this is my interpretation of what happened (I can't hear the audio where I am): The base runner was automatically out for running out of the base path. Because she continued running and caused the second baseman to throw to second instead of first they gave Georgia the out at first as well since it was a likely out and you lose the "maybe there would be an error" argument when you do something illegal. Therefore, double play. Possibly way off, but it's my guess. That said, I can't explain the run counting.
No.
Runner was out at 2nd because she was out of the baseline. She was called out before the throw. The batter, after reaching first base, thought she was out as well, so she left 1st base. At that point, the 1st base coach touched her. At that point, she is out. The runner at 3rd base scored while the batter reached 1st base safely, so the run was awarded.
Ah. Thank you. Did they explain that in game?
One of the Auburn players explained it very well just a minute ago, and that was the best explanation I've heard yet. So that's what I'm going with.
The only thing I can think of is that she thought that the umpire ruled an automatic double play, due to the runner going out of the baseline to avoid a DP.
Auburn advances.
Georgia plays LSU tomorrow in an elimination game.