What went down in the 11th week of college softball? The aim each week is to bring you five stories that defined the week in college softball to help navigate the long road to Oklahoma City and the Women's College World Series.
1. Kasey Cooper's walk-off statement
Auburn third baseman Kasey Cooper's week wasn't the best of any player's in college softball. It was a week that underscores what may be the season's best individual performance, and she provided the kind of moment that makes people notice it.
No. 2 Auburn trailed 3-1 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning of its series opener against No. 12 Georgia. Having already split a midweek doubleheader at home against another ranked opponent, No. 7 Florida State, the Tigers risked losing back-to-back games for just the second time this season and first against anyone other than top-ranked Florida. But after back-to-back singles from Tiffany Howard and Emily Carosone, Cooper hit the first pitch she saw high over the right field fence for a walk-off three run home run and a 4-3 win.
Georgia didn't throw much for Cooper to hit the rest of the series, six walks followed in the final two games, but she made the most of what she saw as the Tigers swept the Bulldogs. She also made her point, and emphatically so, about her bid for USA Softball Player of the Year.
Cooper, who also became Auburn's all-time RBI leader with the home run, entered the series ranked seventh in the nation in both slugging percentage (now .926) and on-base percentage (now .587). Those top sevens also included Louisiana-Lafayette's Lexie Elkins, the NPF No. 1 pick, and Michigan's Sierra Romero, the reigning espnW player of the year. But Elkins is injured, and Cooper has an opportunity in the season's final weeks that Romero does not by virtue of schedule strength.
Compared to some of the nation's other top contenders, Michigan among them, Auburn's schedule out of conference was less than robust. The substance was in the SEC portion of the schedule. And beginning this past week, its final 11 games will be against ranked teams.
The race is incomplete. Washington's Ali Aguilar had her own showcase this past week, hitting a game-tying home run and later scoring the winning run at Oregon State on Friday before hitting home runs Nos. 19 and 20 to clinch the series Sunday. Romero and Alabama's Haylie McCleney are right there, too. But if Cooper, whose numbers in conference play are superb and is a terrific defensive player, closes well against that schedule, the award may be hers to lose.
Her closing kick began with a memorable jog around the bases Friday night (it continues Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2 against Tennessee and Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on SEC Network).
2. Sara Groenewegen and the value of a hit
Speaking of those with something to say about the player-of-the-year debate, Minnesota's Sara Groenewegen had as many hits in the seventh inning of the series finale against Nebraska as the Huskers' hitters managed in seven innings against her in the series opener.
Her hit was rather more productive.
The best in college softball when it comes to mixing pitching and hitting (although South Florida's Erica Nunn and James Madison's Jailyn Ford might argue), Groenewegen went about adding two wins to her pitching résumé in very different ways. On Friday, she faced just one batter more than the minimum in a 6-0 win. She struck out nine Huskers, walked none and allowed only a second-inning single. Entering the weekend, only eight pitchers who had worked at least 150 innings had a better ERA than Groenewegen, once again a workhorse for the Gophers.
Yet the Canadian junior isn't unbeatable in the circle, especially less than 24 hours after the same lineup faced her. In Saturday's game, which turned out to be the finale after weather forced a cancellation Sunday, she allowed eight earned runs. Disaster for a team that needed to win the series to have any hope of a second-place finish in the Big Ten or an NCAA tournament seed? Not after Groenewegen drove in five runs at the plate -- including a grand slam in the fourth inning -- in an 11-10 win.
The last of those RBIs came on a bases-loaded, two-out walk-off single.
In almost every instance, a pitcher getting credit for a win in a game in which she gave up eight runs would be proof of why wins are a flawed statistic. In this case? Not so much.
3. Just like old times in California
With the end of April at hand, only five of the nearly 300 Division I teams remain unbeaten in conference play. In addition to James Madison, North Dakota State and Jacksonville State are two California schools that were familiar names in the sport long before much of the country caught on.
Four games ahead of the rest of the Mountain West with nine games to play, Fresno State has a 16-game winning streak that dates back to a March loss against Cal State Fullerton. Four and a half games ahead of the field in the Big West, Fullerton owns a 13-game winning streak.
Neither conference has a tournament, which means that while Fresno and Fullerton have 56 NCAA tournament appearances between them, the bracket is likely to include both the 1998 (Fresno) and 1986 (Fullerton) champions in the same year for the for the first time since 2009.
Fullerton scored 16 runs in a three-game sweep at Hawaii this week. Fresno State scored 19 runs in a home sweep against Colorado State. Quality pitching is present for both teams, but in both cases, run production is propelling them back toward their old status.
The Bulldogs won 40 games a season ago and made it back to the NCAA tournament after a three-year hiatus, but they hit just 29 home runs. Newcomers Lindsey Willmon, a transfer from Hawaii, and freshman Dominique Jackson have 19 home runs combined this season -- and they don't even hit in the top half of the order. The team's .492 slugging percentage would break the program's single-season record if maintained.
Fullerton, meanwhile, follows the lead of Washington transfer Missy Taukeiaho, who hit two home runs this past week and has a 1.218 OPS this season.
4. When a King is really a (second) ace
Some teams have two good pitchers in the sense that they have a No. 2 starter who is good enough to pile up effective innings in the middle of a series or against lesser teams, thereby easing the workload of the ace that team really needs against the best opponents. That isn't a backhanded compliment -- a lot of teams have won national championships with that arrangement.
But a few teams have two good pitchers in the sense that they are equally comfortable with either pitcher against any opponent. It's a luxury that is creeping toward necessity status.
Which one is Florida State? After the past week, evidence for the latter is accumulating.
In good shape for a national seed in the NCAA tournament but squarely on the bubble when it comes to a top eight seed and the chance to host both a regional and super regional, Florida State helped its cause with a midweek split at Auburn. The Seminoles needed another win against top RPI competition, and those generally aren't available in the ACC. The pitcher who delivered it was redshirt freshman Meghan King, just as she did in a shutout against Minnesota earlier this season. King, who also threw a three-hitter in a weekend win against Virginia Tech, now has a 2.01 ERA, identical to teammate Jessica Burroughs in almost identical innings.
Florida State doesn't have former national player of the year Lacey Waldrop or All-American slugger Maddie O'Brien, and yet this may be its best equipped postseason team in years.
5. Arizona State is in trouble
Not dire trouble, mind you. At least not yet. But the math isn't kind for the Sun Devils, who are in more danger of missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2004 than many might assume of a program that so recently sat atop the sport.
The latest blow came in Sunday's extra-innings loss at home against Oregon. The Sun Devils twice rallied from deficits to tie the game but couldn't prevent Janelle Lindvall's three-run home run in the eighth inning that secured a sweep for the Ducks. It was the third consecutive sweep suffered by Arizona State, two of those at home, where it is now barely above .500 this year.
What does all of that mean, other than glum faces in Tempe? Well, Arizona State entered the series against Oregon ranked No. 31 in the RPI (down from No. 24 two weeks earlier). The only remaining home series for the Sun Devils comes against Stanford, winless in conference and the only Pac-12 team that is an RPI drag. Arizona State must sweep that series, but even doing that amounts to treading water. What the season comes down to for a team just 2-4 in road games thus far are series next week at UCLA and two weeks later at Oregon State.
Without wins there, teams that were behind Arizona State in the RPI like Oregon State, California, Oklahoma State, Texas and Louisville could pass them for at-large consideration.
Would Arizona State miss the tournament if the bracket came out today? Almost certainly not. But there will be a lot less certainty if things don't go well in Los Angeles and Corvallis.
Speaking of Arizona State's glory days, Oregon ace Cheridan Hawkins is three strikeouts shy of becoming the first Pac-12 pitcher to reach 1,000 career strikeouts since former Sun Devil Dallas Escobedo in 2014. The third game of next week's Oregon-Arizona series airs Sunday on ESPN2 at 3 p.m. ET.