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Topic: The Porch, y'all. pull up a seat and kick back.
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CWSooner · « **Reply #5572 on:** May 27, 2024, 02:22:42 PM »

UT's (are they called the Lady Longhorns?) softball team won Games 2 and 3 of the Austin Super-Regional to punch its ticket to the WCWS. Texas is the 1-seed and OU the 2-seed. So, if it plays out according to chalk, we will see a meeting of those two teams in the championship series, as we did in 2022.

CWSooner · « **Reply #5573 on:** May 27, 2024, 04:41:18 PM »

Here's another great Huey pic. This is of a USMC UH-1E in Oct 1969. The UH-1E was basically an Army UH-1C gunship modified to meet Marine Corps requirements. You can see the various weapons-sights in front of the pilots. I've never flown or flown in a Huey gunship, and I don't know what those sights in front of the left-seater are, but I suspect that they are for the forward-facing, semi-fixed 7.62 MG mounts outside the cargo doors. The right-seater has a gunsight for--I think--rockets, folded up and out of immediate use.

Memorial Day -- Make it Matter.

utee94 · « **Reply #5574 on:** May 28, 2024, 11:21:17 AM »

Quote from: CWSooner on May 25, 2024, 01:24:01 AM

Texas A&M beat #1 Texas tonight in Game One of the Austin Super-Regional of the NCAA Softball Tournament.

Duke beat Mizzou in Columbia. I like Duke softball. My esposita and I stayed in the same hotel with the Duke softball team in L.A. in 2022. The Dukies (Dukettes?) got eliminated by U-Dub as I recall.

Tennessee beat Bama in Knoxville. Florida beat Baylor 4-2 in Gainesville. Oklahoma State run-ruled Arizona in Stillwater. All of these were Game Ones. Stanford was supposed to be playing LSU in Palo Alto, but I don't have a result for that game.

UCLA beat Georgia in L.A., punching its ticket to the WCWS.

OU beat Florida State in Norman, punching its ticket to the WCWS, which will be held in Oklahoma City, giving OU and (presumably) oSu an unfair advantage.

See? Doesn't it feel so much better when you just embrace it?

Horns struggled with the ags in Austin. TAMU was probably seeded too low, but I don't think it bodes well for UT's chances in the WCWS. If they DO make it to the end, I don't see Texas beating OU twice, in front of their unfairly advantaged home crowd.

CWSooner · « **Reply #5575 on:** May 29, 2024, 11:27:02 PM »

Quote from: utee94 on May 28, 2024, 11:21:17 AM

See? Doesn't it feel so much better when you just embrace it?

Horns struggled with the ags in Austin. TAMU was probably seeded too low, but I don't think it bodes well for UT's chances in the WCWS. If they DO make it to the end, I don't see Texas beating OU twice, in front of their unfairly advantaged home crowd.

This is a conversation between two sportswriters who, until about a year ago, wrote for The Oklahoman, OKC's newspaper. The underlining of text is mine.

Jenni Carlson: OK, Berry, it is Women's College World Series week. Are you as excited as I am? I get kind of excited about this week.

Berry Tramel: Well, I'm pretty fired up most years for it, but especially when both the Sooners and Cowgirls are this good. You mentioned it: the ultimate in Oklahoma would be if we had an OSU/OU, a Bedlam series in the championship. We almost got it two years ago, and it's looking like these might be the two best teams along with, if you go by the super-regional performance, OU, OSU, UCLA, or the three schools that swept in two games. So, both teams are rolling as they as they get to Devon Park, so it could be the year.
Jenni: I’m gonna have to get used to that Devon Park thing. That may be the thing I struggle with most in this Women's College World Series, what to call the place. It's been Hall of Fame Stadium all these years. So, OK, Devon Park. I'm locking it in right now.
What do you think about this field, Berry? I mean, OU OSU, obviously two teams, people around here know well, but is there a favorite? Do you feel like we have a sense of where this tournament could lead us?
Berry: Well, the Sooners are the favorite, and you know, it's nice to see Texas No. 1, but the Sooners are the favorite. They've won three straight national titles. They've got a juggernaut with Patty Gasso. Texas has a really good team. OSU has a really good team. UCLA has … all kinds of teams have good teams. But until somebody knocks off the champs, the Sooners are the queens. So, OU's the favorite. Everybody realizes that.
But I do think the gap between Oklahoma and the rest of the field is narrower this season than in past years. No dominant pitching for Oklahoma. The Sooners are scoring about the same amount of runs per game as they did a year ago, but they're giving up about one run per game more than they did last season when Jordy Dahl was mowing people down. If you remember Jordy Dahl in the world series last June, no earned runs. I think it was 24 1/3 inning or 25 or whatever it was. Jordy Bahl, zero earned runs. Sooners aren't gonna get that kind of pitching, I don't think, this season. So the gap is narrower than we've seen in recent years.
Jenni : Yeah, we remember Jordy Bahl. Lots of people would like to forget Jordy Bahl, but that's a whole other story.
OK, so you mentioned the gap tightening. It sounds like you're of the mind that the gap is tightened because the Sooners aren't as dominant. Is that true or has the field, has its level raised in your estimation? Is that gap tightened because of what everybody else is doing or is it largely about the Sooners?
Berry: I think it's about the Sooners’ pitching. I really do. I mean, we've had outstanding softball teams in the NCAA for years and years and years. You know, Oklahoma State, this is one of their best teams, might be the best team, but they've been really good. They made the semifinals two years ago, and UCLA's UCLA, and on and on down the line. So I think that's really what it is. I'll put it this way, Jordy Bahl was still pitching for Patty Gasso, if she was gonna start on Thursday night against Duke or whoever, they'd probably be the No. 1 seed. So they'd be playing wherever Texas is playing. Then I think the gap would not be narrower. So I do think it's about the Sooners.
Jenni: So we've nibbled around this idea of OU-OSU, a Bedlam championship series. Berry, I have actually written about this multiple years. I let some games play out. I let it get close. I let it get possible before I floated it out there. And it never has come true. Is this a legitimate shot? Should I even should I even propose the idea or just sit on my hands and let things get down the road a little bit?
Berry: Well, I don't see any reason to sit on your hands. I mean, go ahead and throw it out there. I do think it's a long shot just because it's all a long shot. The Cowgirls making the championship series, that's not a sure thing. And if they did make it, it's not a sure thing the Sooners will be waiting on them. So the odds are against it, but the odds are better than they've ever been probably.
OSU's playing very well. Ran through the regional, ran through the super regional. Sooners have righted the ship. They won 14 straight now, I think. Whatever it is, they’re on a nice winning streak. Had a little bit of a dip, lost the two to Texas, lost the two to OSU, but they're playing really well.
I do think it's a good field. Let's see. Most of the favorites won, so we don't really have any Cinderellas in this field. Alabama's the lowest seated team at 14. Alabama's not a Cinderella. They've been an established power for a long time. So I like the depth of this field is really good. So I think a lot of teams could win it. I think a lot of teams will make a lot of noise. And I think the odds are that OU and OSU won't meet, but they could.
Jenni: The fact that they start out on opposite sides of the bracket, that helps out. That's a first check in the right direction. But then I think what you said about how well both of them are playing, to me, they both come in looking as good as they've looked in a long time. Now, we've had some years in the past when I've thought something similar about these two teams, but I do think it sets up as a strong possibility. I think it's something to be hopeful for if you're a fan of softball around here,
Now, I don't know how fired up everybody else in the softball world would be about a Bedlam series to win it all. I have to think that most people around the softball world would just as soon not have those in-state teams there. One's quite enough, but two, I think a lot of people would be up in arms about that.
Berry: Yeah, and you'd hear a lot of people grumbling about the home-field advantage and all those things, which there is. I think there is a pretty good home-field advantage for OU and a decent home-field advantage for OSU, but them’s the breaks of the game. It wasn't Fresno, it wasn't Plant City, Florida, it wasn't somewhere on the East Coast, it wasn't somewhere on the West Coast that took this event when it was just a little thing that nobody paid attention to and put it in a park that at the time was state of the art and over the last 35 years has just gotten better and better and better. Now, it seats 13,000 and is a jewel of a softball park and is every bit as, foundational in the NCAA sports calendar as Omaha is to baseball, which is something we never thought we'd say.
If there was a time when if you didn't like Oklahoma City being the permanent home, you could do something about it. That day has passed. You can't do anything about it now.
Sooners have taken advantage of it. I think Kenny Gajewski and the Cowgirls have taken advantage of it. That's what ought to happen. You ought to be able to take advantage of it. I know this, the Cornhuskers of Nebraska and the Blue Jays of Creighton have not really taken advantage of Omaha having the Men's (College) World Series lo these many years, 75 years I think. It may be longer. So, Sooners and Cowgirls have taken advantage of it.
Jenni: Definitely so. So we've talked about the locals. Is there a team that they should be on the lookout for as a team that could really upend not only the hopes of maybe a Bedlam Championship Series, but maybe one of the Bedlam rivals winning this whole thing? UCLA ran through their super regional. We've got Texas as the top seed in this tournament. Is there a team that you would be most worried about if you're Patty Gasso and her team or Kenny Gajewski and his team?
Berry: You know what? I don't see a team that really just worries me. I do see a couple of pitchers that worry me. The gals at Stanford and Duke are just dominant and in a one-game showdown, they could give you problems. So, when you look at teams, UCLA has the magic. They got the pedigree this season. They got the history. They're always legitimate. Kelly Inouye-Perez is the coach. She goes back to the Lisa Fernandez days as UCLA as a catcher for the Bruins in the early ’90s. So she's shoulder deep in Bruin lore. So UCLA is probably the one you would probably fear the most.
Not Texas. Texas did not look good, I did not think, in the super regional against A&M. A lot of mistakes there. A lot of wild, out-of-control games. They skated through it and got to Oklahoma City.
But I would say UCLA probably would be the team I would fear the most if I was the Sooners or the Cowgirls. . . .

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Topic: The Porch, y'all. pull up a seat and kick back.

CWSooner

Re: The Porch, y'all. pull up a seat and kick back.

CWSooner

Re: The Porch, y'all. pull up a seat and kick back.

utee94

Re: The Porch, y'all. pull up a seat and kick back.

CWSooner

Re: The Porch, y'all. pull up a seat and kick back.