Four remain in College Softball World Series

Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia and UCLA play in the semifinal Sunday in Oklahoma City for the chance to advance to the championship bracket in the 2010 NCAA Softball Championships

The Vols, who eliminated Louisville from the tournament in Knoxville, take on Arizona in one of the semifinal matches. They beat Arizona 9-0 earlier in the double elimination format and if they win they secure one of the final two spots. A loss to the Wildcats would force a deciding second game today.

UCLA goes against the Georgia Bulldogs in the other semifinal contest. Georgia sent Florida to the sidelines last night with a 3-2 win. The Bulldogs also will need to win twice today if they are going to play in the championship series. Arizona ended Hawaii's season yesterday with a 5-1 beating.

Action starts at 3:30 and will be on the four letter network.

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DROSSELMEYER came flying down the Belmont stretch to win the Belmont Stakes yesterday at 13-1 odds...catching FIRST DUDE and holding off FLY DOWN for win.
A nice win for veteran trainer Bill Mott, a Churchill regular who had never won a Triple Crown race until yesterday. DROSSELMEYER got the win with Mike Smith aboard..a jockey change from Kent "Superman" Desormeaux.

A key factor? Definitely...Mike Smith is a veteran, cagey jockey who knows the New York strip well and is one of the most paitent riders out there. Smith let FIRST DUDE dictate the pace and waited for the midstretch before making the sweeping move to grab the lead.

Another factor that didn't hurt. DROSSELMEYER trained in aluminum pads on his feet at Belmont...which protected his feet from the abrasive Belmont surface. The win for DROSSELMEYER was his third in nine lifetime starts.

Trivia question...Who is Drosselmeyer?

He is one of the characters in the ballet "Nutcracker." Having sat thru yearly performances of the Nutcracker at the Louisville ballet when I was younger..I remembered the name and we featured DROSSELMEYER here in a column in CARDINAL COUPLE as one of our live longshots a couple of days ago.

We were rewarded with a $47 across the board return for our $2 win/place/show wager. We also put him in a $1 exacta box with ICE BOX, FLY DOWN, FIRST DUDE and STAY PUT..and that $20 investment brought back $72. Unfortunately, our $1 trifecta wheel did not have DROSSELMEYER on top and we donated $56 to the mutuals on that one.
Across the board on FIRST DUDE got us back a little show money.

An across the board on MAKE MUSIC FOR ME ended up in the recycling bin. So did an inexpensive .10 cent superfecta that had all the right horses but no DROSSELMEYER on top. Paul got the entire table with us at the Turf Club mad at him when he proudly displayed a $2 win/place/show ticket in the previous race at Belmont on WINCHESTER. This one went off at 21-1 and upset GIO PONTI in the Manhatten Handicap to give him $67 back for $6 wagered.

The card at Churchill wasn't as kind to us Saturday...we were pretty far down before hitting the late Pick 4 to get us back to close to even there.