What went down in the fourth week of NCAA softball? The aim each week is to bring you five stories that defined the week in college softball or help navigate the long road to Oklahoma City and the Women's College World Series.
Gophers overrun the Bayou
Golden Gophers, to be exact. While No. 11 Minnesota made it through the season's first three weeks without a loss, its best wins in that stretch came against teams on the fringes of the Top 25 -- Fresno State, Notre Dame and Texas. Call those the type of wins a team would need to survive an NCAA tournament regional. But in beating No. 12 LSU in Baton Rouge on Saturday, the Gophers stayed perfect with a win worthy of a super regional or even the World Series.
The early success admittedly isn't unprecedented for the Gophers, who play a lot of road games while waiting for their home turf to thaw. A season ago, they beat Oklahoma on a neutral field on opening day and later beat a top-10 Georgia team on its field. But if you're looking for signs this could be the breakthrough season for a team that both has a World Series-caliber arm in senior Sara Groenewegen and is still trying to get back to a super regional for just the second time, start with the newcomers.
Batting fourth and fifth in the lineup, respectively, all weekend, freshmen Kendyl Lindaman and MaKenna Partain posted a combined on-base percentage of better than .500 and drove in six of the team's 16 runs in four games. That included Partain doubling in Lindaman for the eventual winning run against LSU.
It gets no easier. Minnesota (18-0) will play No. 7 Washington twice this coming weekend in Seattle. The Huskies scored 20 runs in two wins against the Gophers in last year's NCAA tournament regional.
Baylor makes its mark in California
After last week's extravaganza at the Mary Nutter Classic in Cathedral City, California, the hot spot in college softball this past weekend shifted a few miles west to the Judi Garman Classic. Not quite as large in scale, the Fullerton, California, tournament never lacks for quality entrants.
It only seemed as if No. 22 Baylor was scheduled to play all of them this season.
Which makes the Big 12 team's perfect week all the more impressive.
Ranked but largely anonymous through the first three weeks, incurring surprising losses to Fordham and North Texas without any wins of great consequence, Baylor beat, in succession, No. 20 Arizona State, No. 14 Michigan, No. 7 Washington and No. 8 UCLA. That it then lost a walk-off 1-0 finale against host Cal State Fullerton is entirely excusable.
Results like four wins against ranked opponents in barely 48 hours require a lot of parts. When Baylor needed runs in a slugfest against UCLA on Sunday, for instance, freshman Shelby McGlaun responded with her first two career home runs. But without worrying about having the wrong envelope, the award for best performance in a leading role clearly belongs to Kelsee Selman. The senior pitcher was good enough in relief to get the win against UCLA but shone in throwing a two-hit shutout against Michigan and allowing one run on five hits against Washington. She even came on for a two-out save against Arizona State.
Now all she has to do is get enough sleep before Tuesday to pitch against No. 19 Louisiana-Lafayette.
Speaking of which ...
Familiar name, familiar result for Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Lafayette coach Michael Lotief, whose team won for the 700th time in his career Sunday, is just showing off at this point.
So often able to find and develop talent that other programs overlooked or didn't maximize, the Ragin' Cajuns don't even need to change names now. Lose Lexie Elkins, the slugging catcher who was the No. 1 pick in the National Pro Fastpitch draft? No problem. Plug in Lexie Comeaux.
In the span of roughly 48 hours, Comeaux hit six home runs, including at least one in each of Louisiana-Lafayette's final five games of a busy week. More than 100 Division I teams had yet to hit six home runs for the entire season entering the weekend. Comeaux took care of it in two days. Not bad for a redshirt sophomore whose previous work totaled one home run (although to be fair, you try playing behind Elkins and see how many at-bats come your way).
It wasn't the most challenging schedule for Louisiana-Lafayette, which played two games each against Alcorn State, Texas A&M Corpus-Christi and North Dakota State (typically a good invite but struggling more than most seasons). But a five-game hitting streak against anyone is nice. A five-game home-run streak is the kind of thing that can make a name for yourself.
Complete performance paces No. 1 Florida
It isn't really news that No. 1 Florida's pitching can be close to perfect. Or in the case of Delanie Gourley, better than close. Gourley's five-inning, 12-strikeout perfect game against Iowa kicked off Florida's stay in the Judi Garman Classic. Back-to-back shutouts followed, a one-hitter against Long Beach State by Kelly Barnhill and a combined effort from Aleshia Ocasio and Barnhill against No. 18 Cal. The Gators possess the pitching depth to make that the norm.
Striking about Florida's weekend in California is that when the pitching wasn't perfect, or even all that close, it didn't much matter. In its final two games of the tournament, Florida beat No. 7 UCLA 9-4 and Northwestern 7-4. In all, the Gators scored 45 runs in five games. That after they scored 33, 34 and 24 runs, respectively, in comparable five-game samples the first three weeks against arguably lesser competition. In fact, only once since the start of last season had the Gators put together more runs in any five-game stretch, let alone roughly the same 48 hours.
Kayli Kvistad and Amanda Lorenz combined for the kind of line the best hitters at Florida have tormented pitchers with for years. Kvistad and Lorenz totaled 12 hits and 11 RBIs, including six extra-base hits, but also walked 14 times. They passed the bat and their teammates responded.
With the SEC season here -- Missouri travels to Gainesville for a three-game series this coming weekend (ESPNU on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. ET and Sunday at 6 p.m. ET and Monday on the SEC Network at 7 p.m. ET) -- the Gators lived up to their reclaimed top ranking.
Maryland does it again
Before that trip to Florida, No. 25 Missouri opened its long-anticipated new stadium. That the occasion attracted a high-profile guest in No. 4 Oregon, a program that knows about settling into new digs, always suggested the Tigers would struggle to defend their attractive new home field.
And indeed, the Ducks never trailed in 10-3 and 7-2 wins against the Tigers and maintained their own perfect start at 19-0 (Loyola, which plays at No. 9 Alabama on Tuesday, is the only team other than Oregon and Minnesota to remain unbeaten through at least 10 games).
The shock came, yet again, from Maryland. After stunning No. 1 Florida for its first win of the season on Feb. 18, one of the more notable upsets in recent memory, Maryland went just 1-7-1 in its next nine games entering its finale at Missouri's tournament. Then the Terrapins watched a 1-0 lead evaporate when Missouri scored seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning Sunday.
Pack it up? Not so much. Maryland rallied for six runs in the top of the seventh inning to tie the game, traded runs with Missouri in the eighth inning (the tournament using tiebreaker rules that placed a runner on second base in extra innings) and pushed across the eventual winning run on Kassidy Cross' RBI single in the top of the ninth inning.
While the Terps would rather win more regularly, no team's victories are more memorable.
As for Missouri, Danielle Baumgartner closed out the weekend with the program's 39th all-time no-hitter in an 8-0 win over Butler.