In Case You've Been Under a Rock, JMU is good at softball. Like, really good. Like, beat-Tennessee-by-slaughter-rule-in-February-before-the-team-really-even-found-its-stride good.
The Dukes can score runs well enough -- they've always been pretty good at generating offense, even dating back to the Katie Flynn days -- but it's the pitching that makes them legitimate national championship contenders. Senior Jailyn Ford and sophomore (sophomore?!) Megan Good form arguably the best 1-2 combination of starting pitching anywhere in the western world. Both are All-Americans; both have ERA's under 1.0; both have pitched a perfect game.
Oh, and they're not just one-trick ponies, either. When they're not in the circle, they can light it up at the plate as well, which leads to some pretty mind-bending sports stats.
Stat from @MattJones36, @JMU_Softball's Ford & Good have almost as many Xbase hits (38) as they've allowed (40) #GoDukes— Kevin Warner (@KevinAWarner) May 17, 2016
Leave it to Mattie Jones and K-Dub to pull out the heavy guns.
They're battle-tested. In the not-too-distant future, there should be a JMU-based 30-for-30 aimed at mid-major athletic departments that features how the Bourne & Co. drafted a schedule as a little guy and came out seeded as a giant. Here's a list of teams JMU beat today, all of which made the NCAA tournament, but zero of which actually played JMU in Harrisonburg:
- UCF (ranked No. 17 at time of game)
- Auburn (Ranked No. 5 at time of game)
- Oklahoma State
- Fordham
- BYU
- Arizona (JMU beat them twice)
- Ohio State
- Arizona State (Ranked No. 21 at time of game)
They ain't afraid of nobody.
#JMU softball went 4-0 against the Tennessee regional. Beat UT by slaughter rule, clipped Ohio State 7-4, and beat Arizona in Tucson twice.— Chase Kiddy (@ckiddysports) May 16, 2016
The Regional Schedule features an ACC cousin (North Carolina), an in-state foe (Longwood), and a sub-.500 group of nerds that got lost on the way to chess club (Princeton).
Seriously though, there isn't a lot to see here. An intra-state matchup later in the weekend could be the type of bloodbath that is fun for three or four innings, but ultimately gets boring, and you end up anxiously counting down Good strikeouts with a mountain of paper K printouts, just so you can get back to the parking lot to shotgun Keystones. The probable matchup with North Carolina carries the most sex appeal, if only because JMU has some noteworthy postseason history with the Tarheels.
And the Tarholes thought a wildfire would let them off the hook from having to get beatdown in the 'Burg?! 😂😂😂😂— JMU Sports Blog (@JMUsportsblog) May 16, 2016
All you need to know about the Harrisonburg regional is that JMU is a -600 favorite to advance to the Super Regional, while the field is +400. And speaking of odds...
A Sure Bet... if you've got $5,000. At several online sportsbooks, you can actually bet the NCAA softball tournament. As of this posting, only lines for the first crop of regional games have been posted, which means that only JMU vs Princeton is available. To win $100, you'd have to bet $5,250 on JMU. That's a hard square bet, simply because the up-front money is so high, but it's about as close to a guaranteed Franklin as you're likely to find in gambling.
(Also of note -- JMU is the second-biggest favorite on the board, behind only Tennessee at -7500. Though when you consider that Florida has been taken off the board altogether for its opener vs Alabama State, the Dukes would likely be the third-biggest favorite on a full board.)
Similar story, different ending. Last year, JMU softball hosted a regional, but got tripped up by an unexpectedly good NC State squad. Expect an undercurrent of measured expectation, and a predictable narrative arc of senior redemption.
For all the literary cliches, though, this team has earned the praise it's garnered. They've obliterated almost every team they've played; the only conference loss they took was a 15-inning marathon game against a capable Elon team. (I have to imagine that, after a game that's more than twice the length of a normal match, players on both teams would have been happy to surrender, just to get off the field.)
When you combine the relatively weak competition that's headed for the Harrisonburg Regional and the dominance that JMU has pitched with, it's a fairly safe bet to look forward to what could potentially be in the Super Regional. Which is...
Purple and Gold v. Purple and Gold. If seeding holds, JMU will host LSU -- yes, that LSU -- in Harrisonburg at the Super Regional level. I'm prepared to make the argument that this would be the biggest home game in the history of JMU athletics.
But to get there, the Dukes have to take care of business Friday, Saturday, and Sunday against a crop of beatable teams. The forecast is calling for rain on Saturday, but who the hell cares? JMU Athletics saved the best for last this year. Get out there and watch some history. The WCWS is waiting.
When you combine the relatively weak competition that's headed for the Harrisonburg Regional and the dominance that JMU has pitched with, it's a fairly safe bet to look forward to what could potentially be in the Super Regional. Which is...
Purple and Gold v. Purple and Gold. If seeding holds, JMU will host LSU -- yes, that LSU -- in Harrisonburg at the Super Regional level. I'm prepared to make the argument that this would be the biggest home game in the history of JMU athletics.
I'm getting an anticipatory buzz just thinking about a JMU-LSU softball super-regional tailgate.— Chase Kiddy (@ckiddysports) May 16, 2016
But to get there, the Dukes have to take care of business Friday, Saturday, and Sunday against a crop of beatable teams. The forecast is calling for rain on Saturday, but who the hell cares? JMU Athletics saved the best for last this year. Get out there and watch some history. The WCWS is waiting.
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