Breaking news: Eliah Drinkwitz send 7 word message to Mizzou.
Mizzou Softball entered the week needing an extended run in the SEC Tournament to get a much-coveted top eight seed in the NCAA Tournament. For those unaware, the softball tournament works in a regional format, where the top seed hosts a group of four. The top seed in each regional — which moves to a “Super Regional” in the following round — has the opportunity to host. So top eight seeds are effectively guaranteed the opportunity to play all of their games at home for as long as they’re in the Tournament prior to the Women’s College World Series.
One week later, and the Tigers are sitting pretty.
It’s about as good of a draw as you can ask for if you’re a Mizzou fan. With a strong tournament run that afforded them the opportunity to leapfrog No. 9 LSU, the Tigers will now host Omaha, Indiana and Washington before, potentially, hosting the winner of the Duke regional. We’ll have more coverage ahead of next weekend’s Columbia, but here’s a quick download on each of their regional-mates who will be traveling to CoMo:
The Summit League champions come into the Columbia Regional as the underdogs of the group. They rank No. 72 in the NCAA Rating Percentage Index, which ranks teams based on their overall record and strength of schedule. The Mavericks are 0-4 against Quadrant 1 teams according to WarrenNolan.com but boast of the country’s best pitchers in grad student Kamryn Meyer. Pitching is the great equalizer in any postseason diamond sport, so Omaha is set up well to compete.
Like Mizzou, Indiana made a somewhat surprising run to its conference championship game, besting No. 1 seed Northwestern on the way there. The Hoosiers fell short against Michigan in the championship, but did enough to get a No. 3 seed in the Columbia regional. The NCAA ranks them 43rd in the RPI, just a few spots above where Warren Nolan has them. They too have struggled against Quadrant 1 opponents this season (7-14), but have enough firepower to surprise — they’re one of the country’s most potent offensive teams, scoring 6.1 runs per game.
The Pac-12 powerhouse has had a bit of a down season after making it to the WCWS in 2023. The Huskies rank 24th and 25th in the Warren Nolan and NCAA RPIs, respectively. In what is becoming a common theme, the Huskies have struggled against the top competition this season, only going 9-12 against Quad 1 teams. The Huskies, like Indiana, are a high-scoring team (5.8 runs per game) and feature a potent 1-2 combination in their lineup with Brooke Nelson and Rylee Holtorf. Their top pitcher, sophomore Ruby Meylan, was named along with Nelson and Holtorf to the Pac-12’s first team.
“The really great thing about our team,” Anderson said, “is that our pitching staff is so healthy and so fresh. When I look at the SEC tournament and then look at how many innings Laurin Krings has pitched and she was at around 117, and some of our opponents were up around 175. That just shows me how healthy Krings is. And McCann is below 100 And Harrison is hovering right around 100, so they’re extremely healthy and extremely fresh so I can rely on any single one of them and be able to get the best output out of them.”
Karen was at the Selection Show event and was able to grab some quotes from Head Coach Larissa Anderson and ace Laurin Krings.
“I can tell you in 2022 when we had those four days and we got to that championship game, physically we were okay, emotionally we were exhausted,” [Head Coach Larissa] Anderson said Tuesday. “It just comes from that emotional letdown after you’re so pumped for three games in a row.” quote from Anderson speaking earlier in the week.
Sixth-year senior Mitch] Weber led the charge by ending his SEC outdoor career where he started it, on the podium. Weber earned a top-3 finish in three of his four career SEC Outdoor appearances. His 59.85m throw took bronze and notched him a fourth spot on the national top-25 list, as of May 11. His season-best 60.58m throw from early April sits at No. 13 in the country and will likely earn him a trip to Nationals in TrackTown USA.
If you’re a booster, I would imagine your donations to NIL collectives may reach a point where they come with some caveats. If you’re an Ole Miss booster giving Chris Beard a few extra million dollars a year for players and he misses the NCAA Tournament again this season… how much more willing are you to throw your money away the next season… or the next? You can say the same thing about Dennis Gates at Missouri. Mizzou, by most accounts, seems to have a healthy NIL operation and it didn’t prevent them from having a disaster of a season last year.
Trailing 9-1 heading to the 8th inning of Sunday’s rubber match at Taylor Stadium, the hosting Tigers furiously rallied to score six runs in the final two frames but came up short and lost 9-7. The gave Auburn the series and ensured Missouri will need to sweep Mississippi State next weekend and get some other help on top of that if it wants to make it to Hoover.
