Can you get off work early on Thursday? The Arizona softball team will begin play at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City on Thursday at 4 p.m. Tucson time.

The Wildcats’ game against Tennessee will be televised by ESPN2.

There was one shocker in the Super Regional bracket on Sunday, as 16th-seeded Hawaii beat top-seeded Alabama 5-4 to eliminate the Crimson Tide and advance to the Series. That marks the first time the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament failed to make it to the World Series.

Here are the four first-round matchups on Thursday (with original seeding in the 64-team tournament):

No. 9 seed Missouri vs. No. 16 Hawaii (10 a.m. Tucson time)

No. 5 UCLA vs. No. 4 Florida (12:30 p.m.)

No. 10 Arizona vs. No. 15 Tennessee (4 p.m.)

No. 6 Georgia vs. No. 3 Washington (6:30 p.m.)

With the top two seeds out (Tennessee eliminated No. 2 Michigan in a Super Regional), the Washington Huskies become the favorite … which they should have been all along.

The defending national champs were ranked No. 1 all season and have the nation’s best player — pitcher Danielle Lawrie — and should have been seeded first overall when the field was announced two weeks ago.

The winner of the Arizona-Tennessee game will play the winner of the Georgia-Washington game in the second round. The losers of those games play in an elimination game. Check out the full bracket.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: UA, UA softball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.