Rounding Third Softball

Oklahoma’s (42-2) grip slipped a bit in this week’s USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Coaches Poll. The newly crowned Big 12 Regular-Season Champions still checked in as the top team in the land as they took two of three in the Bedlam Rivalry over the weekend to claim the title and pickup 25 of the polls first-place votes. No. 2 UCLA (38-3) started to gain however picking up six of the top votes, while No. 3 Alabama (42-7) picked up one.

Rank	School	Points	Record	Last Week
1	Oklahoma (25)	793	42-2	1
2	UCLA (6)	773	38-3	2
3	Alabama (1)	724	42-7	3
4	Florida	711	40-8	4
5	Washington	671	39-9	5
6	Arkansas	588	40-8	8
7	Florida State	587	38-9-1	6
8	Arizona	567	35-10	7
9	Oklahoma State	566	40-8	9
10	Texas	484	38-9	11
11	Oregon	468	33-15	12
12	Arizona State	465	32-14	10
13	Clemson	426	40-5	13
14	Louisiana	356	40-10	14
15	Missouri	342	37-14	15
16	LSU	313	31-18	16
17	Kentucky	300	38-12	18
18	Michigan	257	32-6	19
19	Tennessee	234	39-12	17
20	Virginia Tech	192	32-12	20
21	Duke	183	39-10	21
22	JMU	97	31-1	24
23	Minnesota	82	26-10	23
24	Wichita State	66	37-11-1	25
25	Liberty	36	39-13	RV

New to Poll: No. 25 Liberty

Dropped Out: No. 22 Georgia

Receiving Votes: Georgia (25), Notre Dame (23), Ole Miss (21), Fresno State (15), Mississippi State (13), UCF (7), Miami University (6), Boston University (5), USF (3), Cal State Fullerton (1).

Ahead of the championship tournament that starts tomorrow in Louisville, the Atlantic Coast Conference has announced its softball season award winners for 2021. Regular-season champion Clemson received three of the five postseason awards. Two of those awards, Player and Freshman of the Year, go to the same individual for the first time ever in a season with Clemson’s Valerie Cagle taking home both. Clemson Coach John Rittman was named Coach of the Year for leading the Tigers to the ACC Regular-Season Championship in only the programs second year of competition. The awards were rounded out by Pitcher of the Year Keely Rochard from Virginia Tech and Defensive Player of the Year Sydney Sherrill from Florida State.

RTS has confirmed that Nicholls State and head coach Angel Santiago have parted ways. Santiago coached the Colonels for 10 seasons winning the Southland Conference Championship in 2018 and was voted conference coach of the year twice in 2016 and 2018. The softball program had shown steady improvement in Santiago’s tenure despite battling various budget shortfalls, equity concerns, and Title IX issues the institute recognized, yet failed to address that seemingly had major ramifications on the growth of the program. Santiago was 255-229 overall with the Colonels. This season Nicholls finished 12-28 and 5-22 in Southland play.

Arguably the world’s top pitcher has made her return. Yukiko Ueno returned to the circle in the Japanese Softball League after a month out from injury with a muscular strain in the right side of her body. She sustained the injury in the leagues opening weekend in early April. Ueno pitched this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday for her Bic Camera Bee Queen team. The squad sits atop the league standings with a 8-3 record as the Japanese Softball League now breaks until September as the Japanese National Team starts final preparations for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The already rescheduled games actually taking place however, are now considered in serious jeopardy as Japan deals with a fourth wave in the pandemic and mounting pressure from the countries population to cancel or once again reschedule the Olympic Games that begin in July.

Saint Francis clinched the Northeast Conference Regular Season Championship on Sunday finishing a conference sweep of Long Island University. The Red Flash took the doubleheader from the Sharks 11-0 and 7-5. With the championship SFU also secured the top seed for the NEC Tournament that they will now host later this week.

By virtue of sweeping Boise State and Nevada doing the same to rival UNLV on the weekend, Fresno State has clinched the Mountain West Conference Championship with one weekend of conference play still to go. The Bulldogs put the finishing touches on the championship with a 3-1 victory over the Broncos on Sunday at home on Margie Wright Diamond. With the title in hand Fresno State also punched their ticket to the NCAA Postseason by virtue of the MWC not holding a conference tournament.

Auburn University at Montgomery won the program’s first Gulf South Conference Championship on Saturday defeating Mississippi College 8-2. AUM went undefeated in the championship tournament with a 4-0 record. With the championship victory the Warhawks receive the GSC’s automatic bid to the NCAA DII South Regional.

New Mexico State has clinched the Western Athletic Conference Regular Season Championship with a 9-3 victory over California Baptist on Saturday. The victory coupled with a Seattle loss to Grand Canyon, gives the Aggies the outright championship and No. 1 seed heading into the WAC Tournament next week in Seattle.

North Texas won the Conference USA Regular Season Championship outright on Saturday with a 6-0 shutout victory over Louisiana Tech. The Mean Green had clinched at least a share of CUSA Title on Friday with a doubleheader sweep of the Lady Techsters. UNT will also enter next weeks Conference USA Tournament in Bowling Green, Kentucky as the No. 1 overall seed looking to punch their ticket to the NCAA Postseason.

Seattle’s Madison Cathcart set the record for most doubles in Western Athletic Conference (WAC) History on Friday in the Redhawks doubleheader sweep of Grand Canyon. Cathcart, the senior graduate, set the mark at 58 over her record breaking career at SU.