I've survived another night at the Days Inn south here in Oklahoma City, and am back at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium, about 40 minutes before the first pitch of Game 1 of the championship series between Washington and Florida.

I think everyone is getting what they wanted out of the championship series, that being Stacey Nelson vs. Danielle Lawrie. Not sure how you can beat that in terms of a pitching matchup. But this tournament hasn't really been about pitching, as both Lawrie and Nelson got touched up pretty good in uncharacteristic performances yesterday--Lawrie gave up eight runs in a loss to Georgia, and Nelson allowed five in the Gators' 6-5 win over Alabama. We'll see which ace has the most left in the tank.

The general consensus around here--from the coaches, as well as a lot of fans I've heard--is that Florida is a legitimate favorite in this.

Really? I mean, it's not like the No. 1 team in the country is going to ever be an underdog. But it's not ridiculous to think the Huskies could pull this off. Lawrie got beat up yesterday, yes. But she also came back to get a win in the nightcap, and was pitching against a team that had seen her four times already. Florida has seen her once, and that ended in a 1-0 UW win.

Both Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy--who wears eye black during games--and Georgia head coach Lu-Harris Champer have said that they think Florida is going to take home the national title. There's definitely an SEC vs. Pac-10 vibe going on here this weekend.

UW head coach Heather Tarr wasn't biting.

"Honestly, I think it's great for the game that it's not just two Pac-10 teams playing," Tarr said after UW's win over Georgia last night. "But I'm pretty consumed with our team and what we're trying to do. It's nine girls named Sally who we play, and I don't really have a broad focus right now."

That's kind of been Tarr's--and her team's--motto all season. None of them really seem to pay attention to what other teams are doing, and if they do, they do a pretty good job of hiding it. Tarr has maintained since the season began that this is a championship-caliber team, and has never wavered in that belief. And beating Florida earlier this season didn't really enforce that attitude, she said, simply because she already knew what her team was about.

"We, I thought, knew how good we were," Tarr said. "I guess it just takes a couple proven wins to I guess show ourselves and show the rest of the country where we are and what we're doing. But I figured it just kind of set a benchmark for standards of what everybody else thought of us. We always thought the same thing."

Turns out she was right.