Agree that Bama ran out of steam. It was a long weekend and long late night of playing on Saturday. I was running out of stream just watching (if a slug can run out of steam).
For what it's worth Fouts in HS playoffs had once thrown 450 pitches (four games) in a day and that after pitching the night before. I think Murphy made the right call though since Fouts has had the (over)usage injury. I would rather keep her around for the long haul.
I expect to be back next year. This was a youngish team.
Hats off to the seniors for being such a selfless and classy, but scrappy bunch who have led their team and represented their school in such an admirable fashion.
Agree on all counts. Fouts already has an over-use injury, so you just can't ask her to throw a third time in two days. Not fair to her or next year's team (more on that in a minute).
I was a bit surprised we didn't pitch Cornell in the last game...she was the SEC pitcher of the year. Mrs. Basket Case and I have been out of town for about three weeks, so I'm wondering: Was there a reason for that? An injury I might not have heard about?
As for next year, we're loaded. There was only one senior who was a major contributor, Reagan Dykes. She has played the Catcher position for 4 years, and will be missed, but that's college softball. The rest of the major production returns intact. Fouts is on her way to becoming a superstar, and the SEC Pitcher of the Year (Cornell) returns for her senior season.
Hope it doesn't jinx the team, but Mrs. Basket Case and I are thinking of making reservations now for next year's tournament in OKC.
And as another poster noted, we got jobbed in the seeding. Oklahoma deserved #1 seed, but there's no way we should have been playing them the first day. That loss put us in the position of having to win four games in two days, two of which were against Oklahoma again. We played five games, three of which were against the number 1 seed, and just ran out of gas, physically and emotionally.
We won the regular season SEC title. Won the SEC Tournament title. Played and beat more ranked teams than anybody else, including a bunch of Top-10 teams. No way that resume should be the #8 seed. If we have a different seed, we're not playing #1 three times, except maybe in the finals.
We'll never know how a seeding more reflective of the regular-season performance would have turned out. OU has a great team, and they might have beaten us on a level playing ground anyway. But playing us on the back end of a physically and mentally draining 4-game / 2-day stretch, essentially at their home, was a huge advantage for them, and the direct result of a major mis-calculation by the seeding committee.
On to next year. I expect to be back with the best team we've ever had.