Hello There, Guest! (LoginRegister)


Post Reply 
Graham Hays on Louisiana Softball
Author Message
Bookmark and Share
zeebart21 Offline
All American
*

Posts: 4,641
Joined: May 2002
Reputation: 182
I Root For: Louisiana
Location:
Post: #1
Graham Hays on Louisiana Softball
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/story?id=4156959

3. What is the toughest regional?

First off, massaging a bracket to minimize travel costs is miserable and thankless work, so there's some measure of credit due the committee for keeping the number of necessary flights low (by my count, only 14 teams will clearly have to fly to reach a regional site).

But geography does create some regional sites that are great for fans but daunting for teams. And in a close race, Waco looks like the slight "winner" for toughest regional, narrowly edging out Los Angeles (UCLA, Fresno State, UNLV, Long Beach State) and Tempe (Arizona State, San Diego State, LSU, Cal State Fullerton).

No. 12 seed Northwestern stumbled toward the end of the regular season, and the selection committee provided ample opportunity for someone to kick the Wildcats while they're down by sending them to face host Baylor, Louisiana-Lafayette and Texas State.

With third baseman Brette Reagan back in the lineup, Baylor went 12-7 down the stretch, including wins against Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska and Texas A&M. One team it lost to during that stretch was Texas State, which may be the toughest 4-seed in any regional after racing through the Southland Conference regular season and tournament.

And yet the hottest team heading to Waco may be Louisiana-Lafayette. Although she's pitching limited innings alongside Donna Bourgeois, Ashley Brignac has 94 strikeouts in 69 innings this season and hasn't allowed an earned run in 66.1 consecutive innings.
05-12-2009 07:34 AM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Advertisement


Post Reply 




User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)


Copyright © 2002-2024 Collegiate Sports Nation Bulletin Board System (CSNbbs), All Rights Reserved.
CSNbbs is an independent fan site and is in no way affiliated to the NCAA or any of the schools and conferences it represents.
This site monetizes links. FTC Disclosure.
We allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our web site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit http://www.networkadvertising.org.
Powered By MyBB, © 2002-2024 MyBB Group.