Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Did the selection committee get it right?
The NCAA Softball Tournament is here and it is time to take a look at the teams hosting regionals.
Some teams such as the Oklahoma Sooners and the UCLA Bruins did not have too much to worry about on Selection Sunday, however, teams such as the Auburn Tigers were watching nervously to see if they would be hosting a regional.
The power rankings of the teams selected to host are as follows:
The schedule is set for the No. 5 Alabama Crimson Tide and the rest of the Tuscaloosa Regional for the NCAA
Alabama softball entered the Tuscaloosa NCAA Regional hosted at Rhoads Stadium as the No. 5 seed overall. Patrick Murphy and the Crimson Tide have a 40-18 record on the 2023 season with an in-conference record of 14-10.
Many were shocked to see Alabama earn the No. 5 seed, given the strength of other programs in the SEC and how the Tide failed to win the SEC tournament, or even reach the final.
While the team wasn’t able to win the SEC, winning a national title is still within reach. However, the Tide must first get through the Tuscaloosa regional.
Here’s what you need to know about Alabama’s first step toward a national championship.
Which team has the best chance of knocking off the two-time defending champion Oklahoma Sooners?
The regular season has come to a close, and it is time for 64 teams across the country to begin their trek to the Women’s College World Series.
The first step in the trip begins this weekend as the NCAA Regionals begin at 16 campus sites across the country. The top seed of the field is the No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners, who carry a 51-1 record into the tournament and have won 43 games in a row after dropping a 4-3 contest to Big 12 rival Baylor on Feb. 19.
UCLA, Florida State, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Washington, and Duke join the Sooners as top-eight seeds and will host the super regionals next weekend should they emerge as champions of their respective regionals this weekend.
Which team has the best chance of dethroning Oklahoma this postseason? Here’s a look at all 16 regional sites, plus the 64 teams that make up the field ahead of NCAA regionals.
With the Women’s College World Series coming out ahead, both the WCWS and the College World Series saw huge ratings in 2022
Both college softball and college baseball are considered growing entities, but, as of now, one appears to be ahead of the other, and it might not be what you think.
Both the Women’s College World Series and College World Series were broadcast on ESPN. The WCWS produced both a higher peak viewership and a higher average viewership. The WCWS accomplished this while having lower ratings than in 2021.
How streaming figures into this is a bit of a question mark. These are only cable numbers. When including cord-cutters, the numbers are going to be much higher.
This is a very good thing for the future of sports for women’s athletics and college sports in general.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfZBpdfO1vI/
I’m just going to put this out there: The tournament that had the Oklahoma Sooners win yet another national championship had better ratings. I’m just saying.
After a bit of a down year in 2021, the CWS’ ratings were up 19% to get back to pre-pandemic numbers.
This is definitely something to keep an eye on in the future. Both baseball and softball are going to be getting more interesting at the collegiate level very soon.
More and more high school baseball players are opting to go to college with the MLB draft still shortened following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, in softball, Women’s Professional Fastpitch, a professional softball league is in its first season. The WPF has multiple former Sooners in its ranks, including Collegiate Player of the Year Jocelyn Alo and WCWS Star Hope Trautwein.
ESPN put both the CWS and WCWS on their streaming service ESPN+, making it even easier to follow college sports than ever.
[vertical-gallery id=65304]
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. Let us know your thoughts, comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.
Look out!
It won’t count on the scoreboard, unfortunately, but Mary Iakopo was a part of one of the most unlikely moments of the college softball postseason on Saturday.
The catcher for the Texas Longhorns softball team was up to bat in the bottom of the first with her team trailing the Oklahoma Sooners, 2-1, in a postseason edition of the Red River Rivalry. After taking a ball, Iakopo drilled a shot down the third-base line that couldn’t quite stay fair.
But as the ball sailed through the Oklahoma City sky, it was set on a collision course with one of ESPN’s cameras that was situated in the outfield. It hit the camera squarely in the lens in an impressive feat of precision that must have certainly scared the life out of the operator.
Our ESPN camera operators are the best in the business… and they never flinch.
From @NCAASoftball's #WCWS on ABC a moment ago. pic.twitter.com/KQbchL0OT9
— bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) June 4, 2022
Was this insane shot purely a function of luck that probably couldn’t be replicated even with hundreds of attempts? Sure. Was it awesome? Absolutely. Are we going to pretend Iakopo did it on purpose just to show off? You bet.
[listicle id=1906150]
[lawrence-related id=1905861]
Ever wondered what a “regional” and a “super regional” are? We’ve got you covered.
One of the best aspects of high-level sports is the general accessibility of the postseason, even to casuals. You don’t need to watch all 18 weeks of the NFL regular season to enjoy the Super Bowl, for instance.
When it comes to college sports, things are complicated a bit by the organizational structure, which features more teams, leagues and quirks than its professional counterparts. Still, the College Football Playoff and NCAA basketball tournament are easy enough for the average fan to consume — so long as you have the mental bandwidth to learn about a Jesuit school from Jersey City with just over 2,000 undergrads whose mascot is a peacock.
But for bat-and-ball sports, you can throw all that out the window. The NCAA baseball and softball tournaments have a jumbled, confusing, often counter-intuitive format that can be confusing for even ardent fans.
It’s also a hell of a lot of fun if you’re able to keep up with it.
With the regional round beginning on the men’s side this weekend and the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City underway on the softball side, this is as good a time as any to try to make sense of the whole set-up. So, here’s how it works:
Texas softball is moving on to the winner’s bracket in Oklahoma City.
Texas softball is moving on to the winner’s bracket in Oklahoma City. Continue reading “Texas takes game one of the WCWS with a 7-2 win over No. 5 UCLA”
Texas is off to the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2013!
The third time is the charm for Mike White and Texas softball. After losing back-to-back Super Regional game threes, Texas used excellent pitching and timely hitting to take down Arkansas 3-0.
The Longhorns are off to the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2013.
Freshman pitcher Sophia Simpson gave the best performance of her young career. She escaped jam after jam en route to a complete-game shutout.
Texas broke the 0-0 tie in the fifth inning as shortstop Alyssa Washington smoked a two-RBI double into the right-centerfield gap. The Horns would add one more in the inning to give Simpson some breathing room in the circle.
A-Wash delivering in the clutch during the biggest game of her collegiate career to date!
📺 ESPN: https://t.co/KFL4AirkCH
M6 – TEXAS 3 – ARK 0 pic.twitter.com/BT87O7wbHV
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) May 28, 2022
Arkansas brought the trying run to the plate in the seventh but a flyout to Lauren Burke in left field ended the ballgame.
Texas will take on the winner of UCLA and Duke in Oklahoma City next week.
heard them say this was a must win game 🤘#HookEm pic.twitter.com/tY2oY5hp5D
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) May 28, 2022
Contact/Follow us @LonghornsWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas news, notes and opinions.
No. 4 Arkansas proved too much for Texas in game one of the Super Regionals.
No. 4 Arkansas proved too much for Texas in game one of the Super Regionals. The Hogs move one game away from the 2022 Women’s College World Series with the 7-1 victory over the Longhorns.
Texas’ Hailey Dolcini and Arkansas’ Chenise Delce took a 0-0 pitchers duel into the fifth inning. The Arkansas bats finally got to Dolcini and exploded for seven runs in the final two frames of the game. Hannah Gammill brought in the game’s first run and the Hogs never looked back.
Texas loaded the bases in both the fifth and seventh innings but only pushed across one run, falling 7-1.
The loss marked the third straight season Texas has dropped game one of a Super Regional.
Game two will take place tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN 2. Texas needs a win to fight off elimination and force a winner-take-all game three.
Contact/Follow us @LonghornsWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas news, notes and opinions.
Clemson made history in Sunday’s 8-0 run-rule win over the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, winning its first-ever NCAA regional to advance to Super Regional play for the first time in program history and doing so on their home turf. The Tigers got the …
Clemson made history in Sunday’s 8-0 run-rule win over the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, winning its first-ever NCAA regional to advance to Super Regional play for the first time in program history and doing so on their home turf. The Tigers got the scoring started early in the first, but it all came down to a huge fourth inning where Clemson scored seven runs off of six hits, six of which were with two outs, highlighted by homers from Aby Vieira and Valerie Cagle.
Lefthander Millie Thompson earned her second win and shutout of the weekend in Sunday’s win. Louisiana’s Meghan Schorman takes the loss for the Rajun’ Cajuns.
With the 8-0 victory on Sunday, the Tigers completed their third shutout in a row, advancing to the Super Regionals and staying in the hunt for a College World Series birth in Oklahoma City.
Cammy Pereira led things off for the Tigers in the first with a clutch single up the middle with a 3-2 count. Cagle came up big a few batters later with an RBI single to score Pereira and give Clemson the early 1-0 lead after one.
Following a scoreless second and third inning, the Tigers broke the game open in the fourth. With one out, Vieira doubled the Tigers lead to 2-0 with a no-doubter to centerfield, her fifth home run of the year. Alia Logoleo quickly followed suit with a single to shortstop that was later brought in by Maddie Moore’s RBI double. Following a Louisiana pitching change, Pereira struck yet again for the Tigers, this time with a two-RBI single to left. Cagle was the real hero though, launching her 13th homer of the year to right field, tacking on three more runs for a score of 8-0 through four innings.
The Tigers came away with the 8-0 run-rule victory and shutout on Sunday improving to 41-14 overall and advancing to the program’s first-ever Super Regional next weekend. NCAA Super Regionals will take place May 26-29 with locations and opponents to be announced later this week.
