CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. -- What went down in the third 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.
This week's special edition comes from the Mary Nutter Classic, in which 35 teams played more than 80 games over four days in the California desert. More than 14,000 fans showed up for Saturday's session alone. So with apologies to No. 2 Auburn and No. 15 James Madison -- teams that traded shutouts by Kaylee Carlson and Megan Good to split a pair of games on the other side of the country and end Auburn's 13-game winning streak --, what follows comes solely from college softball's biggest regular-season tournament.
Home away from home
Texas A&M is in the midst of building a new softball stadium, the latest program to join the SEC facilities race. The project won't interfere with operations in the current stadium, but the Aggies should consider California if they find themselves in need of a temporary home.
No one can beat them in the desert, though a bunch of ranked teams gave it a try.
In making a case to climb into the top five, and maybe even pluck some No. 1 votes, No. 18 Texas A&M won all five of its games in the Mary Nutter Classic. The Aggies beat No. 1 Florida State, No. 14 Michigan and No. 19 Arizona State, in addition to BYU and Long Beach State. An annual participant, Texas A&M has now won 17 consecutive games in the tournament.
The win against Florida State on Thursday was a game worthy of Oklahoma City. Seminoles starter Jessica Burroughs and Aggies counterpart Samantha Show matched shutout inning for shutout inning, Show aided by a home-run-robbing catch by Texas A&M center fielder Erica Russell. (That offers the annual opportunity to link to this catch by former Arizona and Team USA center fielder Caitlin Lowe at the same tournament 11 years earlier.) It wasn't settled until Texas A&M second baseman Kaitlyn Alderink's two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning.
As telling, perhaps, was Texas A&M rallying for two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning the next day to secure a 2-1 walk-off win against Arizona State. Remember, the Aggies rolled through this same event a year earlier but then foundered in the SEC. With eight starters back this season, there is ample talent. It's just a matter of what the Aggies do with it.
"Every coach, it's a nightmare to have a huge win and then the next day a letdown," Aggies coach Jo Evans said. "I think [the Florida State win] gave our kids confidence, an understanding that even if we don't score early, we have the wherewithal to make plays on defense, our pitchers to get outs and stay in long enough to give ourselves a chance to score runs."
More of the weekend's winners
California: It required rallying from a two-run deficit in Sunday's finale, but No. 21 Cal's 5-4 win over Ohio State on Sunday left it as the only team other than Texas A&M to survive the week without a loss. None of the four wins were against ranked teams, but Louisville, Nebraska, Ohio State and Oklahoma State all have at least postseason potential out of major conferences. Sophomore Lindsay Rood continues to perform like one of the nation's best leadoff hitters.
Florida State: There was no shame in the Texas A&M loss, some free swinging notwithstanding, and the Seminoles responded well in the five games that followed. Included were wins over Arizona and UCLA and a tie against Michigan (due to travel commitments) in a 24-hour span. Credit the pitching of Burroughs and Meghan King for much of the success, but the lineup kept producing runs when pitching fatigue took its toll in the back-and-forth game against the Wolverines. The Seminoles might drop out of the No. 1 spot, but they didn't disappoint.
Nebraska: Being the nation's best two-win team has to be a relief for Nebraska, which finally found its footing after a season-opening 10-game losing streak against a brutal schedule. The first win came against No. 22 Missouri, the team that ended Nebraska's season a year ago. And after one hit in her first 10 games, freshmen Tristen Edwards, younger sister of former Husker stars Tatum and Taylor, hit two home runs in a weekend-capping win over Oregon State.
Chasing home run history
Arizona coach Mike Candrea said he checks with Katiyana Mauga on a regular basis to make sure she isn't losing her hair. He considered having her read a book about Roger Maris' pursuit of the major league home run record in 1961. Candrea was, to be clear, joking on both counts, but life may well become a bit different for Mauga in the near future.
The senior hit her seventh home run of the season in No. 9 Arizona's win over Louisville on Thursday. That blast came in the first of four wins for the Wildcats in Cathedral City, the weekend marred only by a 1-0 loss to Florida State in which ace Danielle O'Toole was still brilliant for a resurgent team. It was the 74th home run of Mauga's career, which leaves her 21 behind the NCAA record Oklahoma's Lauren Chamberlain established just two years ago.
Mauga recorded almost as many walks (5) as official at-bats (7) the rest of the weekend, but the hot start has put history in play for the senior. An extended postseason run could give Mauga 50 more games. At her current career pace, that would produce 19 home runs.
"I can tell when she's forcing the issue, when she's trying to hit the ball out," Candrea said. "Right now she's looking for good pitches and she's taking what they give her. There's not much you can do [about the attention] because that's the reality. That's definitely going to be there."
Apt to be hard on herself early in her time in Tucson, not that the numbers showed it, Mauga may be better able to maintain an even keel at the plate as teams pitch around her. As was the case with Chamberlain's artistic expression or former player of the year finalist Jen Yee's mathematic precision, Mauga's passion for hitting takes its own form.
"I think that's my pride," Mauga said. "I take more pride in that than anything else. Like how Lauren Chamberlain put it, as art, I think it's art, too. But I think it's more [about] pride for me. I like to go out there and not think too much, because if I think too much it's going to mess around with my head. ... I just think more of go up there and see the ball, hit the ball. And just have fun."
Two tough weekends
Louisville: It's precisely because the Cardinals played well enough to be competitive their whole time in the desert that the weekend will be tough to swallow. Before a win against Cal State Fullerton, they lost 2-1 to Oklahoma, 5-3 to Arizona, 5-2 to Cal and 4-0 to BYU. They had 21 hits in the losses; their opponents had 22. Florida State, Notre Dame and Pitt all come to Louisville in ACC play this year, but this weekend was lost opportunity for NCAA tournament credentials.
Oklahoma: The Sooners have lost four games by a combined four runs, all against teams with a chance to be ranked this week. On the other hand, the Sooners have lost four games and it isn't yet March. A 10-1 run-rule win over No. 4 UCLA, in front of a decidedly pro-Bruins crowd, should offer some perspective on why this team is the defending champion and was ranked No. 1 in the preseason. The Sooners ranked seventh nationally in slugging percentage a season ago. With much the same cast and the same hitting coach, they are currently slugging under .400. At this stage, logic still suggests the runs will come.
Spotlight on Bethune-Cookman
The divide in Cathedral City is not entirely metaphorical. Five fields are split into two groupings, three showcase fields with backdrops made to look like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium and two more utilitarian fields labeled Pawtucket and Des Moines, the minor leagues. Programs with World Series pedigrees occasionally play on the minor-league fields and mid-majors occasionally play on the showcase fields. For the most part, they are worlds apart.
It was just beyond the outfield fence on Des Moines that Bethune-Cookman coach Laura Watten spoke to her team after a 1-0 loss to St. John's, the fourth of what would be five losses against a difficult schedule that also included No. 8 LSU, No. 14 Michigan, Stanford and Texas. Watten wasn't happy that her young team had, among other things, run itself out of a chance to tie the game against St. John's. But results didn't diminish Watten's belief in the experience.
"It's the closest thing you can get to playing in the postseason, in regionals and in super regionals and then eventually getting into the Series," Watten said of the second trip in as many seasons for a program without the budget of the SEC and Pac-12 powers around them all weekend.
"This is the best environment because you're playing against the best teams, and you're also in situations where you're playing amongst crowds and an environment and energy that is very similar to the postseason."
In her first stint at the school in Daytona Beach, Florida, Watten coached Bethune-Cookman to a super regional in 2005. It remains the first and only time a team from the MEAC or SWAC, the conferences comprised of historically black colleges and universities, won a regional and one of the few times teams from the conferences won postseason games.
In a sport that still lags well behind national demographics (just 12.7 percent of Division I softball players were reported as black or Hispanic in 2015-16 NCAA demographic data), Bethune-Cookman, like most HBCU softball programs, is a mix of all races. And in its aspirations, both for success on the field and in extending opportunities to a broader spectrum of participants, it was a much-needed presence.
"We're all our experiences," Watten said. "I think that makes them have a stronger bond than most teams. They get along so well off the field. They're more diverse, they stand up for each other, there is so much more connection than anywhere else I've been."