Did you spend the weekend cramming for March Madness? We can help fill in the gaps from a busy weekend on the softball diamond with five developments worth talking about.
1. LSU offense and Alabama freshmen rule the weekend
There may be better ways to spend five hours than that offered by the SEC Network (shameless plug, although the Pac-12 Network will contribute its share, too) this past Saturday with the middle game of the series between No. 1 Florida and No. 2 LSU and the first game between No. 5 Alabama and No. 8 Georgia, but you can have them.
Two of the biggest series of the still young season lived up to the rankings and the hype. They entertained, which would be enough. But they also informed. If you watched all weekend, you know more than you did a week ago.
You know LSU's offense is the real deal, a championship-caliber collection of speed and power.
And you know Alabama's freshman duo of pitcher Alexis Osorio and second baseman Demi Turner are, too.
All of them will stumble because softball wouldn't be nearly as fun if it weren't a little cruel, but we saw what can be.
When a player goes 10-for-14 with eight RBIs on the road in a series against the No. 1 team and unbeaten defending national champion, as LSU's Bianka Bell did this past week, it doesn't exactly require a spoiler alert to say there will be more to say about her and the Tigers when the time comes to name espnW's player of the week. But suffice to say, when LSU opened the second game of the series with nine runs in the first inning and then had the composure, after Florida had come all the way back to tie the game at 10-10, to load the bases in advance of Kellsi Kloss' grand slam that secured a 14-10 win in what was supposed to be a series-long pitching duel, it meant more than one lone win in March. As it did when the Tigers, nine outs from being shut out in the finale, rallied for a 10-3 win.
It wasn't that LSU got a timely hit here or there, noteworthy but difficult to replicate. It's that the Tigers got runners on base all weekend.
Florida will be fine, although a trip to Alabama this weekend may not be the ideal way to recuperate. The Gators still have the deepest pitching staff this side of, well, LSU. This wasn't an elimination series. It was a validation series.
The other big SEC series continued a nationwide trend. Pick a top-10 team and you're likely to find a freshman not only playing but playing at an all-conference level. From Oklahoma's Paige Parker and Nicole Pendley to Oregon's Jenna Lilley, Florida's Aleshia Ocasio, Florida State's Jessica Warren and LSU's Allie Walljasper, they're everywhere.
It's true at Georgia with Cortni Emanuel, and it's definitely true at Alabama. With two outs in the seventh inning and the opening game of the series between those teams on the line, Turner ripped a line drive down the third-base line that, while playable, offered every opportunity to be mishandled. It was, and Alabama tied the game. Two innings later, Turner drilled a home run to break the tie en route to a 7-4 win. That she had the chance was in large part thanks to Osorio, who allowed just five hits and no walks in eight innings and retired the final 18 batters she faced. The two were at it again in the series-clinching finale, Turner collecting three hits to solidify her place as the team's leading hitter and Osorio limiting an elite lineup to five hits and two earned runs in six innings.
Do that on the road with Georgia fans on your case and you can do it anywhere.
2. New Pac-12 season, same Ally Carda
Lest fans on the West Coast feel slighted by the SEC claiming top billing, the conference that still dominates the list of all-time national champions got underway this past weekend. After its pitching staff gave up runs by the dozens a week earlier, Arizona got enough quality work in the circle from Michelle Floyd to get a quality series win at California.
Oregon needed just 15 innings to score 42 runs and sweep three games from Oregon State. The routs included a program record nine-RBI game from freshman Gwen Svekis, leading coach Mike White to say it's getting difficult to keep her out of the lineup. She has four home runs, four doubles, three triples and 22 RBIs in 39 at-bats this season. Stop trying, Mike.
But perhaps the surest sign that all is right in the Pac-12 world was Ally Carda toying with UCLA's opponents. To be fair, Carda's most impressive performance of the week actually came just prior to the conference-opening series against Utah. In a midweek game against Baylor, she not only struck out 14 batters in a three-hit complete game but ensured she wouldn't have to go extra innings by driving in the winning run with a walk-off single. In three games that followed against the Utes, she picked up four more hits at the plate, including three doubles, and allowed just four hits in 13 shutout innings in the circle.
While it wasn't causing her to lose large numbers of games, Carda did have a noticeably elevated walk rate early in the season. Well, in 20 innings this past week, she walked exactly one batter (and struck out 30). Her rate is still higher than it was a season ago (3.1 walks per seven innings, compared with 2.1 in 2014), but it's moving in the right direction. And as the Bruins hit the road for their first true away games at Washington this week, that means opposing batters are moving in the direction of the dugout.
3. Shelby Pendley goes berserk
We know. There seems to be space permanently reserved for Oklahoma in these discussions, but if the Sooners keep putting up numbers like this, they can hang some pictures, bring in some plants and make themselves at home. In scoring 74 runs in five games, including twice putting up 23 runs against legitimate competition in Iowa and East Carolina, Oklahoma's offense managed to both enable and overshadow Patty Gasso becoming the second-fastest coach, after only Arizona legend Mike Candrea, to 1,000 career wins.
How good is the offense? Oklahoma has scored 257 runs in 26 games. It hopefully doesn't require a calculator to know that's essentially 10 runs per game. When the Sooners won the national championship in 2013 with one of the best lineups in recent memory, and perhaps ever, they scored 187 runs in their first 26 games. The current team has scored 70 more runs in the same number of games. There are all sorts of reasons why it's unwise to go too far with the comparison at this stage, but, shoot, go a little distance with it.
In the weekly Lauren Chamberlain watch, the senior hit three home runs to claim third place for herself on the career home run list, trailing only Stacey Nuveman (90) and Stacie Chambers (87). But again, as with Erin Miller a week ago, the best hitter in college softball wasn't her team's most productive hitter for the week. In fact, it's possible no hitter in the country was as productive as Shelby Pendley. As of Monday morning, there were 34 hitters in college softball who had more than eight home runs this season. Counting the one she hit Monday evening, Pendley hit eight in the span of 72 hours. She came to the plate 20 times against Iowa and East Carolina and produced eight home runs, two doubles, two singles and five walks. Her next home run will earn her a place in the all-time top 10. It was a week in which three-home-run games seemed to spring up everywhere -- Florida's Taylore Fuller, Louisiana-Lafayette's Kelsey Vincent and sensational Georgia State freshman Ivie Drake among those in the club -- but nobody outslugged Pendley.
4. Another ace in Alabama
Alabama, Auburn and South Alabama are a combined 65-13 so far this season, but there is at least a case to be made that the most effective pitcher in the state at the moment is a sophomore at UAB who totaled barely 10 innings a season ago. Cara Goodwin and the Blazers lost an opportunity to take on the Crimson Tide this past week because of weather, but they swept a three-game series against UTEP to improve to 6-0 in Conference USA.
Unbeaten in its past 15 games, UAB is one of a number of teams that might not be the first out of your mouth if asked to name those with 20 wins already. But unlike a quick starter like Kansas, which has, to its credit, won most every game put in front of it but hasn't yet faced much competition, UAB is working on a decent résumé. And Goodwin has a lot to do with that. Now 10-0 with a 1.75 ERA, she threw 14 innings against UTEP, struck out 15 batters and allowed just five hits and two earned runs. That on top of a strong relief effort in a win against Mississippi State and a five-hit shutout against Minnesota in the preceding weeks.
5. Credibility boost in South Carolina
Come on, Clemson, you know you want to be a part of this. While that school still resists the urge to enter the new century and field a softball team, South Carolina and USC Upstate played the game rather well this past week.
It was all, or mostly, about pitching for the Gamecocks, who not only took two of three games from Tennessee to right their SEC record after being swept at home by Missouri a week ago but also beat a very good Western Kentucky team in a midweek game. Ace Nickie Blue is trying to be this season's Kelsey Nunley for an emerging program and looked the part with a four-hit shutout against the Lady Vols, another win in an extended and effective relief appearance and a four-hitter to negate another big strikeout performance from Western Kentucky's Miranda Kramer.
But if offense is more your style, USC Upstate had you covered. The Spartans couldn't solve Florida State's Lacey Waldrop in a loss, which puts them in the same boat as most of the country, but in addition to scoring 34 runs in a three-game sweep of Kennesaw State, they also produced a 9-4 win against what had been a red-hot North Carolina team. After facing an unimposing early schedule, the performance against the Tar Heels lends credence to the stats that make USC Upstate one of the nation's most prolific teams at the moment. Between them, Shellie Robinson (8-for-18) and Dana Landers (8-for-17) combined to drive in 13 runs and hit four home runs, two doubles and a triple.