Another full day of softball in Clearwater dominated both the ESPN airwaves and, likely, your Twitter feeds. There was a lot of ball played off the airwaves, as well, and we’ve got you covered with ten of the top highlights from Saturday’s action between the white lines!
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1. Jocelyn Alo, #2 all-time
With four home runs in two games on Saturday, Oklahoma slugger Jocelyn Alo passed former UCLA great Stacey Nuveman for fourth place on the all-time list, then proceeded to vault herself all the way up to second all-time in the same day. Alo hit a pair of home runs against McNeese and another two longballs against hosting Houston to give her 94 round-trippers for her career. Alo will hold a share of the all-time record, currently fellow Sooner Lauren Chamberlain‘s 95 career bombs, and will pass Chamberlain for sole possession of first-place all-time with two more home runs.
𝐍 𝐈 𝐍 𝐄 𝐓 𝐘. 𝐅 𝐎 𝐔 𝐑. @78jocelyn_alo pic.twitter.com/JKaWyce3Pn
— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) February 19, 2022
2. Hutch ties Candrea for another top spot
For the last few seasons, Michigan head coach Carol Hutchins and now-retired Arizona coach Mike Candrea have gone back and forth on the all-time coaching wins list. The pair are the only two coaches to cross the 1,500-win plateau and both also topped 1,600 wins. Candrea retired following the 2021 season, and “Hutch” entered the 2022 campaign needing five wins to tie and six wins to top the 1,674 victories with which Candrea retired. She got win #5 on the season with the Wolverines’ win over LSU on Saturday night.
Hutchins has held the wins record in the past, but once she passes Candrea this time, she figures to hold onto the record for awhile; the next-closest active coach is still a few hundred wins back.
3. Troubled Tigers, Longhorn Losses, Curious Cowgirls
More than a few teams who entered the season with high expectations have not lived up to those same hopes. Three of those teams are in Clearwater, and have struggled mightily against the tournament’s top-tier competition. LSU ended Saturday 1-3 on the weekend, after dropping a back-and-forth affair to Notre Dame in the morning and never scoring against Michigan in the nightcap. The Tigers scored six runs against Notre Dame, but the scoring came on just three hits. After run-ruling Oklahoma State on Saturday afternoon, the weekend had an upward trajectory that came crashing quickly down.
Speaking of those same OSU Cowgirls, they began their weekend with a win of their own, a shutout of Michigan, but have since lost three straight games. In those three games, the Cowgirls have been outscored 24-9, including a 7-1 loss to South Florida on Saturday afternoon. A back-and-forth affair against Washington was a hard-fought affair late Saturday evening, but saw the Huskies pull away with a 7th-inning rally.
And then there’s Texas, a The Longhorns have not won a game in Clearwater through Saturday, losing to Florida State, Auburn, UCLA, and UCF. The Longhorns had their opportunities against UCLA on Saturday afternoon, but could never put a big-enough rally together and came up shy in a 2-1 defeat. The game against UCF was one of the wackiest in recent memory, a game that saw the two teams combine for 25 runs, 21 hits, 11 errors, 13 walks, 8 stolen bases, and use eight pitchers. The Horns have looked totally off-kilter in Clearwater, and have just one game left on Sunday to prevent their weekend from ending with a goose-egg in the win column.
4. Payton Tidd as Notre Dame’s difference-maker
Payton Tidd’s performance was so impressive against LSU on Saturday that we talked to Irish head coach Deanna Gumpf about it after the game and wrote a full article on the true senior’s performance. Check that out here.
Most notably, Tidd gave up five runs in the bottom of the first inning but rebounded to allow just one run the rest of the way, allowed three hits in total, and hit a game-tying home run later in the game. It was an impressive showing of putting her team on her back.
5. Pitching Excellence has a second name, it’s M-E-Y-E-R
Omaha pitcher Kamryn Meyer has had a good weekend. No, maybe she’s had a great weekend. After throwing a 1-hitter against Boise State on Friday – a game that saw her record fifteen strikeouts in a complete-game outing – Meyer’s appearance against UTSA on Saturday was even better. In another complete-game effort, the true junior hurler threw her second career no-hitter, keeping UTSA hitters off the base paths and recording eleven strikeouts along the way.
For the season, Meyer has made four appearances, thrown 26.2 innings, allowed nine hits and six runs, and struck out 41.
6. How’s this for a stat
Thanks to statistician-extraordinaire Karen Johns, this stat made it to the ESPN airwaves during the UCLA/Texas game on Saturday afternoon: At one point in time, ten consecutive hits off of UCLA pitcher Megan Faraimo had come with two strikes on the batter. Faraimo has only allowed eighteen hits in five appearances this season, including taking the walk-off loss to Northwestern on Friday, and earned the win in a tight matchup against Texas on Saturday.
7. Not upsets, but notable nevertheless
Tennessee State 4, Miami (OH) 3
Troy 4, Ole Miss 3
Monmouth 2, North Carolina 0
Central Arkansas 5, Mississippi State 3
8. Kamdyn Kvistad, Record Breaker
Kamdyn Kvistad is the second Kvistad sister to hit a lot of home runs as a college softball player, but she is the first to hold her program’s career home run record holder in her hands. Kvistad hit the 29th longball of her career against Butler on Saturday, giving her the Jaguars program career record all to herself. Kvistad’s home run was her only hit of the day and also provided South Alabama’s only scoring in the matchup.
9. Winning with a Side(s) of stolen bases
Yes, we’ve used this same pun before in the Terrific Ten, but it’s just so good (and so easy!) that we had to bring it back. KB Sides‘ transfer to Arkansas this summer was much-celebrated, and with the way she has changed the offensive dynamic in Fayetteville, there’s little wonder as to why. On Friday, she stole her fifth base of the season, a bag that officially gave her more stolen bases than the entire Arkansas offense a year ago. Another stolen base and an inside-the-park home run were also part of the graduate senior’s efforts on Friday, then she stole three more bases on Saturday to give her a total of nine swiped bags this season.
Sides’ speed and short-game abilities have given Arkansas a new and different look at the plate and on the basepaths this season.
10. A softball alum in the Olympic history books
It didn’t happen on a softball field, but former George Washington softball player Elana Meyers Taylor made Olympic history on Saturday. With a bronze medal in the two-woman bobsled at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Meyers Taylor is now the most decorated female bobsledder in Olympic history with five medals in her career. During her Olympic career, Meyers Taylor has won three silver medals and two bronze, including Saturday’s medal. She previously earned a silver medal in Beijing in the monobob event.
