With a minimum of 96 games played over the span of roughly 72 hours, the NCAA tournament regional round is a whirlwind of softball. It's a feast of softball, but it's also a lot to take in. Amid all of those balls, strikes, hits, outs and innings, the moments that matter most are easily lost.
The goal here each day is to identify the 10 moments, moves or performances that define the tournament. Here are the moments from Friday that made our list.
Nearly perfect start for UCLA
Of course a program that gave us a total of 10 perfect games from Debbie Doom, Lisa Fernandez and Keira Goerl would be a candidate to add another to its total in a regional.
On the other hand, it is hard to come up with a team less likely to pitch the first perfect game in this year's tournament than one that entered the postseason ranked No. 146 in ERA. (Of course, that was one spot behind Florida A&M, and we saw what it did on Friday.)
Johanna Grauer ultimately had to settle for merely throwing a no-hitter in No. 12 UCLA's 7-0 win over Cal State Bakersfield. And that is a decent thing to settle for, when you think about it.
A two-out walk in the seventh inning cost Grauer what would have been UCLA's fourth perfect game this century and its first seven-inning postseason perfect game in 25 years. The result, instead, was the 108th no-hitter in Bruins history and seventh in the past four seasons. One imagines that for Grauer, who faced just two batters in her first NCAA tournament a season ago, a no-hitter is more than fine for a first postseason start.
How to (almost) overshadow a no-hitter
Florida State's Jessica Burroughs set an early high bar for the round's most dominant pitching performance with a 14-strikeout no-hitter against Florida A&M. The opening game of an NCAA tournament regional is a nice time to throw your third career no-hitter and match your career high in strikeouts.
All of which is impressive, but perhaps not as impressive as what the pitcher from the other dugout did in No. 8 Florida State's 1-0 win. Florida A&M's Kenya Pereira lost her bid to make the game a double no-no on a sixth-inning double by Florida State's Jessica Warren, who also drove in the only run on a first-inning sacrifice fly. But Pereira's one-hitter against an opponent ranked 217 places higher in the RPI, not to mention an opponent ranked 12th nationally in batting average, very nearly became the story of the entire day.
The MEAC is not without its own tournament history -- Bethune-Cookman reached a super regional in 2005 -- but Pereira made sure the Rattlers weren't taken for granted.
The pitcher who scared Auburn
The moments that linger in the tournament often have little to do with the winners. Sometimes it's an image, such as that of Jacksonville State pitcher Whitney Gillespie crouched behind the plate, helpless to do anything but watch the winning run slide home in front of her as she backed up a throw from the outfield that arrived too late as the Gamecocks' upset bid of No. 4 Auburn fell short in the Tigers' 2-1 walk-off victory.
She deserved better than a front-row seat to defeat, but some of postseason's power is in the suffering it produces.
Top-four seeds don't lose opening games at home. That's not hyperbole. Counting Florida's win against Alabama State on Friday, top-four seeds are 45-1 in openers since 2005. The lone loss, by top-seeded Cal in 2005, came on a neutral field. But for the better part of seven innings, Gillespie kept one of the nation's best lineups off balance on its home turf. She not only struck out seven batters, but she also induced more outs hit weakly to her (four) than she allowed hits (three). The last of those, a bunt single not fielded cleanly, preceded two hit batters and the game-winning sacrifice fly.
Top seeds look the part
For those inclined to make something of admittedly small sample sizes, champions have tended to look the part in their opening games. Since the tournament took its current format more than a decade ago, only Arizona State in 2008 scored fewer than five runs in its opener en route to a title. Plus, the 2010 UCLA team is the only eventual champion to allow more than one run. (The Bruins beat Saint Mary's 11-4 in a game in which it didn't pitch Megan Langenfeld, who went on to dominate that postseason.)
None of the other top seeds will lose much sleep over not meeting the criteria, but No. 1 Florida, No. 2 Michigan and No. 5 Oregon wasted no time in asserting themselves in five-inning run-rule wins against Alabama State (11-0), Valparaiso (8-0) and Fordham (8-0), respectively.
Since losing its opening game in 2012, Florida has outscored its opening opponents 32-1 in wins over the past four seasons; two of those, of course, ended in championships.
Meanwhile, No. 7 James Madison, while it needed seven innings, rolled to a 7-0 win against Princeton.
Ole Miss is the best of all time (technically)
OK, that statement is true only by the most literal reading of the record book. But for a night, Ole Miss owns the best winning percentage in the history of the NCAA tournament after a 5-1 win against Tulsa.
The lone winner on Friday among the bracket's five first-time participants (although Butler could join them after its opening round game against Kentucky was suspended by rain), Ole Miss is a perfect 1-0 all time.
Is this where we point out that, inevitably, it is all downhill from here? After all, even UCLA only has a .792 postseason winning percentage.
Instead, for now, let's appreciate the moment like freshman Sarah Van Schaik did, airborne as she rounded first base, after her three-run home run broke open the game in the third inning in the Norman Regional. With two outs in that inning, Ole Miss still didn't have a hit, let alone a run in the tournament. But back-to-back-to-back hits from freshmen, capped by Van Schaik's blast, underscored the dawn of a new era.
Miami (Ohio) and McNeese State topple big budgets
McNeese State senior pitcher Emily Vincent was two outs away from throwing a no-hitter in which Arizona State nonetheless scored two runs. She settled for a one-hitter in her team's 5-2 win.
Miami (Ohio) scored the eventual winning run against Notre Dame on a play in which the batter was thrown out at first base by the right fielder. Replays also left little doubt that the victors benefited from an incorrect call on a close play at first base for the final out of the 3-2 decision.
But perfection isn't a prerequisite for success in May. Neither is pedigree, if you have pitching.
Arizona State entered the Baton Rouge Regional with 87 all-time NCAA tournament wins. McNeese State entered with one win. And the latter was more than a decade ago against a school in Centenary that no longer plays Division I sports. Notre Dame began the Ann Arbor Regional with 10 times as many all-time tournament wins as Miami. But Vincent shut down the Sun Devils, and Miami senior ace Amber Logemann limited the Fighting Irish to five hits.
Kristen Brown sets record, clinches UNC win with one swing
When last we saw North Carolina's Kristen Brown in the NCAA tournament, she was hitting a home run. That shouldn't come as a surprise. She has now hit more of them than any other ACC player. But it was the last we saw of her in the 2015 NCAA tournament, because Brown's blast wasn't enough to prevent Georgia from securing a walk-off win in a regional elimination game.
The Tar Heels slugger didn't leave her opponent any such opportunity on Friday.
Nebraska's MJ Knighten recorded the first walk-off hit in this year's tournament. But Brown delivered its first walk-off home run with a two-run shot in the bottom of the seventh inning to complete a 6-4 win over Longwood in the Harrisonburg Regional. The shot gave Brown sole possession of the ACC home run record. It was also the price Longwood, looking for its first-ever tournament win, paid for not retiring Brown two innings earlier; in that case, Brown's two-out RBI single prolonged a rally that erased a 4-0 Tar Heels deficit.
UCF's Shelby Turnier aces duel versus FAU's Kylee Hanson
Offense is on the rise in college softball, but when the best teams in Division I throw their best pitcher with a week of rest -- in some cases against automatic qualifiers stepping up a level in competition -- runs are more often than not going to be hard to come by. Consider that a year ago, the losing team in the opening round managed one or zero runs in 23 of 32 games.
The opening day of regionals is still a place for pitching duels. And what looked on paper like the day's premier encounter -- last season's national ERA leader against a pitcher with an even more miserly mark this season -- lived up to its potential because Shelby Turnier turned back the clock.
Florida Atlantic's Kylee Hanson made one mistake, when UCF's Jasmine Acevedo caught up to a rise ball and hit her second home run of the season. Turnier, whose dominance late in the season was overshadowed by a slow start, made it one mistake too many. Forget her modest 2.35 ERA entering the regional; a two-hit shutout with just two walks reminded us she is an ace.
Upstart USC Upstate breaks through
Specifically, USC Upstate's four runs in the seventh inning of a 5-2 win over Oregon State were the breakthrough the Atlantic Sun champion needed to stay on the preferred side of the bracket in the Auburn Regional. In its three previous trips to the tournament -- each of the past three seasons -- USC Upstate had only once come out of the first day with a win.
But more broadly, the scoring outburst capped by Karla Beasley's two-run single and Amy Szymanowski's two-run home run, ending what had been a duel between pitching escape artists, was one more breakthrough for a mid-major program trying to carve out a home among the elite. USC Upstate had three all-time tournament wins entering Friday's game, but none came against an opponent from a major conference. The next step is reaching a regional final, a prize available to it on Saturday. Then, in the mold of Louisiana-Lafayette, it would be hosting regionals of its own.
But for now, Friday's seventh-inning success carried the Spartans one more rung up the ladder.
Utah takes a risk, then takes Game 1
Utah is the first Pac-12 team in the super regional era to enter the NCAA tournament unseeded, despite having the conference's player of the year in Hannah Flippen. But far from playing the role of Cinderella, Utah approached its opener in the Lexington Regional like a team planning for a long stay.
Instead of starting experienced ace Katie Donovan, Utah went with Miranda Viramontes against Illinois. Viramontes threw a lot of innings in the regular season, often starting the opener of a Pac-12 series, so it wasn't that bold a gamble to give her the ball. But Donovan made three regional starts a season ago and went 18-10 with a 2.46 ERA this regular season. She would have been the safe choice.
Viramontes limited the Illini to three hits and no runs in 6⅔ innings, and Utah's Kay Kay Fronda went 3-for-3 and stole a base to get herself into position to score the only run in a 1-0 win.
Now the Utes have a win in hand, a rested Donovan and a pitcher with newfound postseason experience.