Positive Numbers: Gopher softball (Last Week: Positive Numbers). Whatever publicity this team is getting now locally isn't enough. Each week they keep topping themselves and achieving what had never been done in program history. And now they stand on the precipice of ultimate glory.
First of all, they rose yet again in the rankings, to either second or third. Then, Catcher Kendyl Lindaman was named Big Ten Freshmen Of The Week ... for eighth time this season. Then on Wednesday, Minnesota swept the individual conference awards. Jessica Allister won Coach Of The Year (her first award); goddess Sara Groenewegen won Pitcher Of The Year (her second time doing so), Lindaman won Freshman Of The Year -- and was named B1G Player Of The Year. Surprisingly (I think it's a little high), this is the fourth time in league history that a freshman won POY (I assume that a freshman who wins POY has also won FOY). Maddie Houlihan, Allie Arneson and Danielle Parlich join Lindaman and Groenewegen also were named to the All-Big Ten First Team.
And then they won the tournament title to go along with their regular season championship. In their Quarterfinal against Northwestern (I'm surprised that this tourney is not double-elimination), Groenewegen tossed the first No-Hitter in the history of the B1G Tournament, striking out 11. Surprisingly (there's that word again), the U. won by a score of 5-1. In the top of the seventh inning, Groenewegen walked Centerfielder Sabrina Rabin, who advanced to second on a groundout, got to third on a Wild Pitch, then scored on a sacrifice fly. Wow, now that's called manufacturing a run. Whatever, the Gophers won comfortably.
The Semifinals and Final were held on the same day, yesterday/Saturday, in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Gophers' toughest game of the tourney would be the semi against Illinois. The Fighting Illini would take a 2-0 lead on the U.'s Amber Fisher before coming back with five runs in the bottom of the fourth. But then Illinois would plate three in the top of the fifth to tie the game at 5. Then, in the bottom of the seventh, First Baseman Sydney Dwyer did this:
Everything else was gravy from then on out for the Golden Gophers. In the Final they shut out Ohio St., 6-0, to clinch their second straight tournament championship and third in four years. The club has now won 25 games in a row. And they will ensure they will receive a national seed for the first time ever when the NCAA field is announced at 9 tonight. This program has never reached the Women's College World Series before, so despite their lofty ranking I naturally am disinclined to favor them over entrenched powerhouses in the sport such as Florida and Oklahoma. However, they should have no problem in the Regional which they will host next weekend, and I expect the team to be victorious in the subsequent Super-Regional which they will host (again, a program first) the following weekend. In other words, reaching Oklahoma City should be the goal. Anything short would be a disaster. Good luck.
#0: Twins (Last Week: 0). Got drilled last Sunday at Target by Boston, 17-6, a game that was close until the top of the ninth, where the bullpen coughed up ten runs and made everyone frightened that the relief corps will be just as horrendous as they were last year. They then took two games at Comiskey over the White Sox (the middle game was rained out and will be made up as a doubleheader the next time the Twinks swing by), then took the first two vs. Cleveland at Jacobs. Actually, not a bad week. They're getting shelled now, but if they lose, that loss goes into next week's WMNSS.
All I can say is that it feels as though this team is solidifying its place as one who can beat bad teams and might be able to take one-of-three against good ones. Let's see if that theory holds up this screening week. After today's game, they'll come home for series versus Colorado (the team's first Interleague match-up) and Kansas City.
#-1: United FC (Re-Entry!). As a season-ticket holder I attend all matches at home, obviously, and because I've been so busy I am usually out doing stuff when the Loons are playing on the road. Yesterday/Saturday was the first time I have seen a telecast of a match, at Toronto FC. So I got to hear, for the first time ever, United FC's play-by-play man, Callum Williams.
I thought I've said this once before on WAF, but I'll say it here if I haven't: I think that soccer commentators are grossly overrated. They have a tendency to be extremely dramatic, almost operatic in how one goal almost assuredly means pure ecstasy for one team and utter dejection for the other. (Yeah, they give complete confidence in such extreme feelings -- that's another thing that bugs me about them.) They also seem to have a compulsion with wordplay that is annoying in its calculation. And finally (and this may sound like I'm contradicting my first point, but I'm not), they are rarely clear if someone fucking scores or not. Americans would say "Goal!" all the time when the ball goes into the net, but UK play-by-play guys prefer the picture to tell the audience whether or not there's been a score. It may seem redundant to them, but if you're just going to let the pictures do all the talking, there shouldn't be any damn commentators at all.
Saying all that, when I heard the first half of Reds hosting Loons (on free TV, no less! Watching professional sports teams on local TV isn't completely dead yet!) and heard the mellifluous Birmingham stylings of Williams, I actually got a smile on my face. I've never met the chap, so I'll assume he's a good and moral person. Yet he was prone to these unicorn-riding rainbows of pronouncements of how these goals were so grandiose, and how ... well, I don't exactly remember the context, but when Toronto FC Striker Tosaint Ricketts scored the game-winner in their 3-2 win over United, he strung together the rhyme "headline, scoreline, and frontline," or something, and I didn't know if I should feel more embarrassed that he just came up with that or if he actually planned that. And yet ... all I could think of was, "Dude, this guy's British ... and he's calling our games!" It's as if Williams flew across the pond on angels' wings, saw our little isolated nook in the Colonies, and decided to touch down here to spread the gospel of "real" football and grace us with the Art Of British Soccer Commentary.
Just a thought. Man, now I don't have the energy or time to talk about the side's best game so far, a thorough and controlled 2-0 victory over Sporting Kansas City. All credit goes to Miguel Ibarra, who crossed on both Goals. Batman can play in Major League Soccer.
I left them off last week's Survey, and I'll leave them off next week's because their next game isn't until next Sunday.
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). I don't ever remember a non-conference opponent coming to Dinkytown so late in the college baseball season, and certainly not one the caliber of Long Beach St., currently ranked tenth in Baseball America's rankings. I don't know the reasoning and the process behind landing this pretty unique series. But this appears to be a win-win: Minnesota gets to host a big-time program in order to boost its RPI and thus its chances of getting into the NCAA Tournament; same thing with the Dirtbags (which I learned is the official nickname of the Long Beach St. baseball program), although, as a member of the Big West, I figure that facing a mid-level BcS squad on the road is worth the RPI boost they would receive with each victory. Combining those two factors together convinced me to make a commitment to watching Friday night's first game of the series for a long time, even if I had to skip work in order to watch the game. (Turns out I didn't really have work to miss; turns out this night scoring project that was scheduled around this time has been delayed. That's just a shitshow, and maybe I'll talk about it some other time.)
And the Gophers were game Friday. I didn't know that their ace, Lucas Gilbreath, was undefeated for the season at 5-0. Unfortunately he got shook down for his first loss Friday night. The Dirtbags sac bunted a lot, and their general aggression contributed to single runs in the fourth, sixth and seventh, erasing Terrin Vavra's run-scoring double in the third. (Well, I have to say that Darrin Jackson Homered to Center in the sixth.) The Gophers had a huge chance in the eighth, where they had the bases loaded partly due to three Walks (which chased LBSU SP Darren McCaughan). But while they eked out one run from a bases-loaded Walk, Jordan Smith Baltimore-Chopped to second to end the inning, and Long Beach St. eventually went on to survive, 3-2.
But hey, the Gophers doubled up the Dirtbags yesterday/Saturday afternoon, 12-6. What does this do for the squad's NCAA tournament hopes? I really think Friday's loss was fatal. They needed, at the very least, two-of-three. They probably needed to sweep the Dirtbags. Maybe even that isn't enough. But now, I think the Nine need to devote their attention to winning the Big Ten -- that's the Tournament, because I don't know if the regular season title is going to be enough.
Besides, they have an extremely loaded scheduled this week. Remember the Rutgers series that was cancelled? Well, because of the Gophers' performance, I believe the conference "compelled" these two teams to play. And it seems as though the Scarlet Knights found enough money and cheap-enough tickets to come to Siebert Field to play a doubleheader Tuesday. Finally, the U. wrap up the regular season playing a three-game set against Purdue. There are two saving graces to all this. One, all eight games they're playing (starting on Friday) are all at home. Imagine doing this on the road. And two, both Rutgers and the Boilermakers are patsies. We'll see what these guys need to do to reach the NCAAs this time next week.
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