Here's what I wrote on the premium board when some said he had no doubt OU would win easily about 10:30 Saturday morning:
This game isn't a no doubter. OU is better, but a lot of little things in this might end up a nail biter. NDSU has a really short bench, but that will hurt them less in game one. And they have a great book on OU, courtesy ISU's hc, who was on the staff there, before moving to Ames this season. NDSU knows more about us, than we know about them.
This just might be the ultimate trap game. The lousier the weather, the deeper the trap. They have been in the NCAA's ten of the last 11 seasons. They have a bunch of one run losses to tournament teams. Number two seed Arizona beat them 2-1. South Carolina beat them 1-0 twice. Auburn beat them 2-1. Minnesota beat them 3-1.
The Bison beat Ole Miss 1-0. Ole Miss won the SEC Tournament last week. They went 28-30 for the season, but they are a dangerous team. They already have two runs. They have some not great losses, but got hot and came together at the end of the year. They are very capable of pitching well and playing good defense. They are the kind of team that has given us trouble this season.
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I also got beat up in the last month for posting that I didn' t like the shift and I thought it would get us beat before the tournament was over. I thought that if we were going to shift, that the left fielder should be play in that short right slot as the fifth infielder, and leave Arnold and Clifton at short and second.
The winning run today scored because she reached base on an error by Hatfield playing short. Not an easy hop, but a ball Arnold likely would have handled easily. She was sacrificed to second and scored on a line single to right.
But mostly, this team lost because they faced a team with a slow injured third baseman who proved in the game that she couldn't play a bunt, and they only bunted three teams. Each went easily for a base hit. There is no excuse to keep swinging for the fences against a good pitcher and the wind blowing in pretty hard. But we kept trying to hit it out, and made more than half the outs on easily played fly balls. Throw in a half dozen strike outs and we never really tested a pretty average defense, that fields it well, but had no real speed. We couldn't test them without bunting and we wouldn't bunt.
OUr team is pretty overrated. And we got unlucky playing T1 in the slop and with a tight zone. When we were pitching. The zone wasn't tight most of the day when they were pitching today.
We have too many players swinging from their heels, who might wear out good or less pitching, but not better than good. NDSU's pitcher is their only pitcher worth a darn. But she was fourth in the country in strike outs. In game one, she was tough to beat.
