Molly Lester warms up before the national championship game.

KENNESAW, Ga. — Molly Lester’s story could easily be about what might have been.

It’s just that once you’re done chronicling what is for the fifth-year senior, there doesn’t seem to be much time left for the maybes and mights.

In addition to some posters that aren’t as profound as they seemed freshman year and some overdue library books, at least if she’s anything like most college students, Lester will leave Duke with more than memories in tow. She’ll take away an undergraduate degree in history, magna cum laude, with minors in English and French. She’ll exit with a master’s in management, part of a one-year program from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business that is the subject of buzz in the business world the same way the Blue Devils are in the soccer world.

On the soccer field, she will leave with at least six goals to her credit. Even if she doesn’t add to the total Sunday against Stanford, she may well leave with a national championship, the first in the history of the Duke program.

It’s a good haul for five years, but it hasn’t come easily. And not just the part in French.

Lester will also leave Durham with a left knee that required ACL surgery before she ever set foot on campus, costing her what would have been her freshman season in 2007, and microfracture surgery before her junior year, forcing her to the sideline for the second time in three seasons. Someone who arrived in Durham as a top-100 recruit, and who remains as athletically gifted as almost any player on the roster, even with the knee of a veteran NFL lineman, will leave knowing forces beyond her control took away dozens of goals and a starting spot, not to mention all those hours spent in the tedium of rehabilitation that could have been put to more frivolous use.

Or, given Lester’s curious insistence on productivity, perhaps another minor.

Considering she played sparingly as a defensive reserve in the only one of those first three seasons in which she was healthy, or at least a close approximation thereof, sticking around for an extra season wasn’t a given when her fourth campaign began in 2010. Why stick around to endure more punishment and disappointment? But finally able to stay on the field, she started 20 games and appeared in all 23 the Blue Devils played a season ago. She scored her first career goal in the opener at Georgia, not far from her Atlanta home, and finished with four goals and four assists.

Molly Lester chases a goal vs. Houston

“Last year I felt like I finally found my step again,” Lester said. “I felt good, the knee felt good. And I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to commit to a fifth year [before that season]. I wasn’t sure what my knee was going to do, I wasn’t sure what my playing time was going to be. I ended up finding my groove and felt like I had more to give.”

Again, it wouldn’t be quite that easy. A productive starter for a team that reached the Sweet 16, Lester could reasonably have felt entitled to a starting spot if she returned for a fifth season. Surely, she had earned at least that much for her sweat and suffering. But with the arrival of uber-gifted striker Kelly Cobb from Alaska, Duke had a glut of talented forwards. Cobb came off the bench for the first weekend of the regular season, but her starting spot was a fait accompli from the moment she signed with the Blue Devils. Lester was the odd woman out, a reserve behind a freshman and two sophomores.

None of it came as a surprise. She isn’t dumb (see: cum laude, magna), and Church didn’t hide anything in discussing her options for returning. She simply made it clear that she wanted to come back in whatever role was available to her. The result is she’s played nearly 900 minutes this season, making six starts and 19 appearances off the bench, and scored twice.

The Blue Devils may not start any seniors, but don’t confuse that fact with a lack of seniors to look up to, even if they seem generously listed at 5-foot-4.

“She’s just a leader on and off the field,” midfielder Kaitlyn Kerr said. “She’s always getting us ready before practices, before games. She’s kind of like the mother of the team, always keeping us in check. And when she comes out there, her tenacity on the field is just contagious. She always comes out with great high pressure and just sets a tone.”

There is a photo from the aftermath of Duke’s quarterfinal win against Long Beach State that shows Lester walking off the field, hands frozen in mid-clap and a wide smile lighting up her face. Not only was she going to the College Cup, something no group of Duke players had done since 1992, but she was going to a College Cup played in Kennesaw, Ga., almost literally in her backyard.

“I think that’s why we all coach is to see those type of moments,” Church said. “She’s been a fantastic leader, she’s been a fantastic role model. And when she comes in, she has an impact on the game.”

So is it a story of what is or what might have been?

Lester is not a person of many words, at least around those she doesn’t know, perhaps merely combining her newfound business skills with an interest in writing by saving her deepest thoughts for a recounting of her own someday. But as student of American history, albeit more the Civil War era than the 18th century, perhaps she would appreciate being part of a comparison that involves Ben Franklin.

Another student of history, French, English and business, albeit one whose ability to get his foot on a well-placed cross in front of goal is debatable, Franklin is at the center of a famous anecdote about the rising and setting sun. Noting the difficulty of telling the difference between the two in paintings, he remarked during the signing of the Constitution that he was convinced the sun in front of him in that instance was rising.

Is Lester’s smile in that photo the rising or setting sun? Is it the final upbeat coda in a story of what could have been? Or as a week begins that promises both a championship game and news of job offers, is it just the start of her time?

Soccer is coming to an end for Molly Lester. Everything it gave and everything it took helped shape what comes next.

“I always knew the end was coming, but it is a little weird,” she said.

To borrow a thought from Alec Baldwin, it beats a set of steak knives.

Behind first-half goals from Gibby Wagner and Julia Bouchelle and a strong defensive effort throughout, No. 21 Boston College defeated No. 7 Wake Forest 2-0 to edge the Demon Deacons for fourth place in the ACC final standings. As a result, the Eagles earned the right to host the Demon Deacons on Sunday in an ACC tournament quarterfinal instead of flying south to Wake’s home turf.

The setting at Newton Soccer Field started to take on a Bing Crosby-Burl Ives holiday feel as the snow fell more rapidly late in the game, and after four consecutive one-goal losses that dropped the Eagles from title contention to the middle of the table, closing the regular season with the win against the Demon Deacons and one five days earlier against NC State provided a much needed gift.

“You never like to talk about postseason,” coach Alison Foley said. “But we needed to win the last two games because it would set us up in such a great situation for postseason, both ACC tournament and NCAA tournament.”

They couldn’t have asked for a better script. Even with freshman center back Casey Morrison nursing a hamstring injury that led her to sit out the first half Thursday, Boston College can defend as well as any team in the ACC or the nation (the Eagles entered the game 14th nationally in goals-against average, one spot behind Boston University). The problem has been that it’s difficult to win 0-0 games.

Only once all season has Boston College allowed more than one goal, a 3-2 loss at Miami, but it had also scored multiple goals just eight times in 16 games prior to Thursday and watched its offensive output tumble from 2.04 goals per game last season to 1.69 goals per game this season.

So if Wagner’s goal in the 11th minute off an assist from Victoria DiMartino was a bonus, representing the earliest the Eagles had gotten on the scoreboard through the entire conference season, Bouchelle’s goal in the 32nd minute off an assist from Stephanie McCaffrey was about as unexpected a turn of events as the thunder that accompanied the snow later in the evening. But that two-goal cushion, well earned by the Eagles, particularly Gibson Wagner, aggressively pressing the issue in the Demon Deacons’ end of the field, allowed the defense breating room to do its job.

And do its job it did. The ACC is full of talented goal scorers and creative playmakers, but Wake Forest presents a unique challenge with forwards Katie Stengel and Rachel Nuzzolese. Both are big, agile attackers who can beat defenders with the ball at their feet or test keepers from distance, as Nuzzolese did in forcing Boston College keeper Jillian Mastroianni to come up with a fantastic save on a potential game-tying strike headed just under the crossbar in the first half. Yet that effort was about the only time either Nuzzolese, who has eight goals on the season, or Stengel, a Hermann Trophy candidate who leads the conference with 13 goals in 16 games, threatened the goal.

“I give a lot of credit to our back line,” Foley said. “We watched a lot of film on Stengel and Nuzzolese. We talked about their tendencies. We talked about the importance of staying engaged on Stengel and [holding midfielder] Kate McCarthy coming down and doubling down and giving good cover when one center back steps with her. We never wanted any space; we always wanted someone to step with her every time she went for the ball.”

As much as the goals set the tone, the effort of the match was turned in by Boston College senior center back Alyssa Pember. Sidelined earlier this season by an ankle injury that leaves her managing pain more than waiting for a clean bill of health, Pember seemed connected at the hip with Stengel any time the latter came near the ball.

“I thought Pember did a great job,” Foley said. “She orchestrated the defense back there, and I thought she was really good.”

Boston College has shown itself to be a very good team with a very erratic finishing touch this season, a combination bound to lead to frustration at times. The Eagles aren’t necessarily any better than a respectable record indicates (and finishing fourth is an accomplishment in a league where the ninth-place team that misses the conference tournament, Miami, is No. 24 in NCAA RPI), but they have every reason to believe that but for a break here or a break there, 1-0 losses against both Duke and North Carolina could have gone the other way and left them alone in first place. That’s the peril of being a team that relies on defense.

“It’s funny, we beat UNC down at UNC 3-2 [last year], but when we lost here 1-0, this was a much better game for us, believe it or not,” Foley said of last week’s loss to the Tar Heels. “But results are results at this time of the year. It’s really nice when you can play as well as we played tonight and get the result.”

So nice that they’ll do it again in a couple of days with a trip to Cary, N.C. and the semifinals on the line.

McMurry Park in Sulphur, La.

Wrapping up the NPF playoffs:

Lauren Lappin and Megan Willis reflect on playing in Japan in and around the devastating earthquake/tsunami.

Stacy May-Johnson takes (at least) one more turn at bat in NPF.

Life on the road suits NPF Diamonds.

Alisa Goler plays beyond her years in opening win for Bandits.

Monica Abbott is getting more impossible to beat. And yes, I said more impossible.

Best. Pregame. Meal. Ever. Homemade crawfish stew at the NPF championship series.

And while, sure, the end of crawfish season puts a damper on the former, the sight of Cat Osterman and Monica Abbott peering in from the pitching circle means the latter isn’t waiting for football season to peak.

USSSA Pride pitcher Cat Osterman

With apologies to Japanese ace Yukiko Ueno, no two women on the planet throw a softball better at this particular point in time than the USSSA Pride’s Osterman and the Chicago Bandits’ Abbott. Which makes it all the more intriguing to know with certainty that one of them is going to lose before the end of the weekend.

For the second season in a row, the Pride and Bandits will play for the NPF championship, with the best-of-three final series getting underway tonight at McMurry Park. A year ago, Osterman bested Jennie Finch and cemented her status as the closest thing the icon had to an heir apparent as the face of softball. But as good as Finch still was at the time of her retirement, including a gem for the Bandits in that series that forced a decisive third game, the more compelling contest for on-field dominance in recent years has been between Osterman and Abbott.

In 2007, Abbott punctuated her rookie season by leading the Washington Glory to a title against Osterman’s Thunder. Two years later, still with the Thunder, Osterman returned the favor by beating the Pride, then featuring Abbott in the circle, twice in one day to clinch a championship. Their first meeting this season, back in June, went 10 innings back, with both pitchers going the distance in a 3-2 win for Osterman and the Pride.

They bring out the best in each other, which is a little frightening considering what the league’s co-pitchers of the year do the rest of the time.

No wonder the Bandits had a simple rallying cry as Friday’s semifinal against the Akron Racers dragged into Saturday morning and Abbott’s pitch count mounted after she came on in relief of Nikki Nemitz. A loss would have meant a winner-take-all game Saturday morning to even have a chance to face the Pride in the finals.

As coach Darrick Brown explained, “A lot of the girls were saying, ‘Let’s win it this inning for Monica’s left arm.’”

Nemitz obliged with a walk-off three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Of course, with Osterman and Abbott on the marquee, the rest of the rosters are more than merely supporting characters.

For one thing, the Pride don’t need to rely on Osterman in the circle if things go awry or they want a different look. You wouldn’t get very far on the aforementioned list of the best pitchers in the world before coming to Pride No. 2 Danielle Lawrie. Veteran Sarah Pauly added to a long and successful postseason resume by nearly no-hitting the NPF Diamonds on Friday. And despite a rough relief stint in an earlier game Friday, Jordan Taylor helped Team USA win the World Cup of Softball in July and can hold her own in any setting.

USSSA Pride OF Caitlin Lowe

It’s that sort of embarrassment of riches that defines the Pride as the FC Barcelona of professional softball. At any given time, the lineup likely contains seven former Olympians, including the world’s best hitter in Jessica Mendoza and it’s most dangerous top of the order in Natasha Watley and Caitlin Lowe. And that’s without mentioning the Olympians coming off the bench, like Jenn Salling, or the non-Olympians good enough to crack coach Tim Walton’s lineup card, like first baseman Charlotte Morgan and outfielder Francesca Enea.

Pep Guardiola should be so lucky.

The only thing bigger than the team’s star power is the target on their collective back.

“I think that coming out, you’re going to be rivals with them,” Bandits shortstop Tammy Williams said. “They’ve been the team to beat, and you want to play them in that final round and prove that you’re the best.”

The Bandits weren’t the second-best team in the league in the regular season, and it’s worth pausing for a second to note the success the Racers enjoyed this season before falling in the semifinals. Coach Jake Schumann said after those losses that it was the group that most embodied team during his 12 years of coaching. To their credit, the Racers may have been more than the sum of their parts, grinding through the regular season and coming up with two more wins than the team from Chicago.

But if we’re talking parts, the Bandits are easily the most compelling foil for the Pride for reasons that go well beyond Abbott. It oversimplifies things to say the Pride are the team that assembled prefabricated stars, while the Bandits are the team that benefitted most from the opportunities a pro league offers to develop stars. But there’s at least a grain of truth there. In Williams, a standout at Northwestern who has blossomed into an international-caliber star since finishing school, the versatile Nemitz and even rookies like Alisa Goler and Megan Wiggins, the Bandits are loaded with players in need only of name recognition to qualify as stars.

That’s a list headlined by Stacy May-Johnson, the two-time NPF MVP who came out of retirement (and national team duty) to rejoin the Bandits for the stretch drive.

“She’s obviously a big plus because you’re never going to have a bad at-bat with Stacy,” Brown sad. “She’s going to go up and battle. She’s going to compete, and you’ve got to have someone like that after your best hitter, your hottest hitter. Goler bats in the three-spot, so you’ve got to have somebody in that four-spot.”

It’s the championship series. And the qualifications of the other aspirants notwithstanding, it’s the championship series the league needed, even if it couldn’t be said.

“I don’t think it really changes our preparation,” Walton said of the alternatives before an opponent had been determined. “It won’t change who we pitch. It won’t change who we bat. It will all be the same.”

But in its own way, that’s the essence of a rivalry. Take two teams that know each other well and see if their best can beat your best. It just happens this one also comes with the two best pitchers in the world.

Thrown into the deep waters of international competition at its highest level, albeit under the relatively benign conditions of the World Cup of Softball, a six-team tournament that is more than a series of exhibition games but less than a major championship, an inexperienced Team USA did more than stay afloat, claiming the championship with a 6-4 win against Japan on Monday night.

Over the span of five days, a team showed it has a future together.

Is that enough?

An American roster comprised almost entirely of current collegians and those for whom the ink on the diploma is still drying looked its age when it struggled to put away the Czech Republic in its opener, suffered a rare loss against Canada (rarer still without Canadian ace Danielle Lawrie on the roster) and struggled to maintain momentum and master execution throughout the weekend in Oklahoma City.

The dugout’s preferred gesture of moment, hands crossed in a reverse wave that mimicked the wings of a bird, was playfully light-hearted. It was also the kind of thing 20-year-olds come up with if left to their own devices for hours on end.

But if a team can act its age, it must also be possible to act its ability. That the latter trait is more extensive than the former is limited became apparent as the weekend continued. First came a late rally Friday after squandering a lead against Australia, Team USA capitalizing on Australian mistakes, such punishment for even minor transgressions a familiar hallmark of previous national teams. Then the United States put away Japan with a five-run sixth inning in an 8-4 win in preliminary play, erasing the sting of three losses against its rival in the previous week’s Canada Cup and responding to pressure after the loss earlier in the day against Canada made missing the title game for the first time in the event’s history a very real possibility.

The progress and potential were both readily apparent than in Monday’s championship game. It was the United States that came out and took control in the first inning. Pitcher Jordan Taylor worked within a tight strike zone in the top half of the inning and the top of the American order scoring two runs without a hit by showing the patience to wait out Japanese pitcher Makiko Fujiwara as she struggled to find the zone in the bottom of the inning. As the game continued, Taylor remained the pitcher in control, Valerie Arioto and Megan Langenfeld came up with key RBI hits, Taylor Hoagland provided what proved to be valuable insurance with a two-run home run and Team USA never looked rattled by the moment. final-inning drama notwithstanding.

This was the first time most fans had an opportunity to see this team play together, not the first time it had played together. But notwithstanding the experience of a handful of exhibition games against their younger counterparts on the youth national team and a week’s worth of games at the Canada Cup, it appeared at times from afar as if the team was discovering its own dynamics and probing its own potential right along with viewers.

That the team proved so easy to root for isn’t a surprise. The red, white and blue gives any team a built-in advantage in such matters — we want to like Team USA in any sport. It doesn’t even hurt to be a bit of an underdog, as this team was following the collective decision of essentially an entire generation to walk away from the international game after last year’s gold medal in the World Championships and focus on building a sustainable domestic pro league in National Pro Fastpitch.

Yet more than being easy to root for, this team quickly became intriguing in its own right — flawed perhaps, unfinished and untested most certainly, but beguiling as an entity that began to take shape out of its component parts.

Rather than be defined by the task of replacing Jessica Mendoza as the No. 3 hitter, Stacy May-Johnson made a name for herself, coming up with big hits at the plate and big plays in the field. The national team’s oldest player at 27, May-Johnson is the embodiment of the value in the sport succeeding in the post-college setting, A very good college player at Iowa, she became a world-class player during five years playing professionally in NPF.

Across the diamond at first base and at the other end of the experience spectrum was Arioto. Forced to miss the college season with an injury, the seemingly eternally sanguine Arioto showed everyone what they missed, time and again demonstrating one of the best batting eyes of any player in the world, NPF or otherwise, and a consistency of approach that couldn’t have hurt in piling up two-out RBI after two-out RBI.

By the time it was over, a collection of current and former college all-stars (“19 players placed on a team,” as Megan Langenfeld aptly put it) looked like something with potential for the long haul.

Add a healthy Molly Johnson at shortstop, possibly allowing May-Johnson to return to third base, where she starred in the professional ranks with the Chicago Bandits, and the left side of the infield looks even more imposing. USA Softball Player of the Year Ashley Hansen wasn’t a part of the national program this summer after playing on the team that won gold last summer, but it’s tempting to envision her sliding over from shortstop with the Cardinal to second base between Johnson and Arioto (or to do the same with Arizona State shortstop Katelyn Boyd, for that matter).

It’s certainly also within reason that a number of the younger members of previous editions of Team USA might return to compete for roster spots in a World Championship year, names like Eileen Canney, Ashley Charters, Alissa Haber and Tammy Williams, if not even former USA mainstays like Monica Abbott, Caitlin Lowe and Cat Osterman.

But the celebration on the field Monday night aside, is any of it enough to keep these players from becoming softball’s lost generation?

Hope Solo has been arguably, although rather more inarguably, the best soccer keeper in the world for several years now. Megan Rapinoe was a marvel in the midfield during her college days at Portland and carved out a niche for herself at the professional and national levels when injuries finally parted company with her. And one look at the record book reveals Abby Wambach has been towering over opponents for years before her heroics in Germany.

But if not for the stage offered by the World Cup, perhaps the one athletic brand name bigger than the Olympics, the only people who would know any of that today would be the fans of women’s soccer who knew it long before this month, just as the average softball fan will as likely as not let out a soft whistle and offer a shake of the head when someone mentions Rhea Taylor’s speed — and the average sports fan will greet her name with a blank stare.

Without Olympic softball, can Team USA still drive interest in the sport beyond college? If it can’t, can anything?

In a metaphorical sense, there is no more appropriate place for this American team or some variation thereof to travel in search of success next summer in the ISF World Championship than Whitehorse, Canada an outpost of civilization that has survived and even flourished amidst the wilderness. Itself cast into the sporting wilderness by International Olympic Committee politics, softball can show its resiliency and its global reach against a Yukon backdrop.

The catch is that in a practical sense, well, it’s just about the worst imaginable choices the International Softball Federation could have made, isolating the sport’s lone remaining major event in a place 1,400 miles north of Vancouver (from that city, itself on the fringes of the sports landscape, it’s a longer drive north to Whitehorse than it is south to Tijuana, Mexico). Already sharing the summer schedule with the London Olympics, the ISF guaranteed its own oblivion by choosing a location prohibitive in both time and cost to reach.

If a tree falls in the forest, nobody is going to be around to hear it (or broadcast it, or write about it) if the forest is three plane flights and several thousand dollars away. When a scheduling snafu (snit, scuffle … pick your word) led the ISF to move the 2010 World Championship from Oklahoma City to Venezuela, fans in this country were left to watch Web streams from Venezuelan state television. That is not to say the sport should cater to Americans, but if the event was that marginalized in a country that has shown a willingness to pay attention during the Olympics or Women’s College World Series, what treatment do you imagine it received elsewhere?

At the bottom of the page on the USA Softball web site that outlines the national team’s schedule of competitions for the next two years there is a brief notation in italics, a simple bit of housekeeping underneath the entry for next summer’s stop in Whitehorse.

“Other events to be announced.”

The future arrived with a flourish for Team USA in the World Cup of Softball. Unfortunately, what tomorrow will bring remains a mystery.

And unlike a night earlier, when an overmatched Czech Republic team hung around but never really threatened to pull the upset against the United States, the opponent on this night, having already taken Japan to extra innings earlier in the day, was entirely capable of walking out of Hall of Fame Stadium with a win.

What Team USA could eventually be took over from there.

Facing Australia’s Justine Smethurst, who first appeared in the World Cup in 2005, pitched Hawaii to a super regional trip to Knoxville in 2007 and earned a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics, momentum seemed headed Down Under. Instead, the United States benefitted from a few Australian misplays in the field behind Smethurst but also seized the initiative in taking full advantage of the good fortune to push across three runs and hold on for a 5-2 win.

There is some truth to the idea that great teams are those which bounce back from adversity. (There is also a great deal of truth to the idea that great teams don’t give themselves many opportunities to prove it). This United States team has a long way to go to be great, but after spending the opening game and the Czech Republic and much of the early innings against Australia looking like a team a little daunted by the uniform it was wearing, it went out in the bottom of the sixth and acted like a team that realized it had the pieces in place to do the intimidating.

You aren’t going to play flawlessly in the field? Team USA has the speed to make you pay. You’re going to intentionally walk Brittany Schutte to get the Valerie Arioto? Team USA has the depth to make you pay.

Some days will be two steps backwards and one step forward. Other days will see the latter outnumber the former. Either way it’s nice when the last step is one in the right direction.

Especially with a long day against Canada and Japan ahead on Saturday.

Player of the Game
Stacey May-Johnson turned in another good game, driving in the game’s first run in the fourth and running out a grounder in the sixth that turned her into the eventual go-ahead run when Stacey Porter misplayed the ball at third. Schutte followed that with a double that nearly cleared the fence in left and held her own behind the plate on defense. Arioto delivered the big hit, a two-run triple to score May-Johnson and Katie Cochran and break the tie in the sixth. But even if she wasn’t part of the drama that eventually won the game, Jordan Taylor gets the nod.

Taylor took a no-decision after being charged with the tying run in the sixth after she was relieved by Keilani Ricketts, but give the former Michigan star credit for a steady, workmanlike effort. That doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement (and admittedly, “workmanlike” isn’t the first adjective that generally comes to mind for Cat Osterman or Monica Abbott), but it is. Working with the team’s least experienced defensive catcher in Schutte, at least in terms of college service behind the plate, Taylor navigated her way out of trouble when it arose, showing the must-have ability in international play to get strikeouts in big spots, and held her own in the heat. She wasn’t perfect, but she looked comfortable from the outset.

When her teammates followed that lead, the win came, even if Taylor didn’t get it.

It wasn’t the most convincing win ever earned in Hall of Fame Stadium. In this instance, it didn’t need to be. Strictly from a softball point of view, what was on display in Oklahoma City didn’t match up to what was being played in Florida between the USSSA Pride and Chicago Bandits, and that’s going to take some getting used to. But rough edges and all, it’s still a national team, and it’s still loaded with a lot of talent and a lot of potential to entertain.

Player of the Game
Let’s go with Stacy May-Johnson. Sluggish as the game felt at times, Team USA didn’t really need a virtuoso individual performance from one player to gain control, and there was enough lineup shuffling to keep most from getting many opportunities for encores. But May-Johnson’s name kept popping up through the course of the action. She went 3-for-4 at the plate, including a home run to push the lead to 6-2, but she was equally notable in the field at shortstop. Good all night out there, she was best when she needed to be. With the Czech Republic threatening in the top of the sixth (you read that right), runners on first and second and no outs, she covered well at third base on a ball down the line to Jenae Leles and made a strong throw to first to complete the 5-6-3 double play.

If I was writing in Oklahoma City tonight, I would definitely be heading for Jessica Shults in search of some good stories about any fun had at the expense of the team’s oldest player — and, jokes aside, what kind of effect a player with both college coaching and professional playing experience has on such a young Team USA.

Random moment
I have a tendency to gush when the conversation turns (often at my insistence) to Val Arioto and plate discipline. Suffice it to say, if I was in a band, “Val Arioto’s Plate Discipline” would undoubtedly come up in the list of potential names (although “Etch A Sketchy” or “The Knights Who Til Recently Said Ni” would be tough to edge out).

One at-bat in the third inning of Thursday’s game showed why she may have the best eye in the sport.

The first two pitches weren’t particularly close — most hitters, certainly those at the national team level, would have been up 2-0 in the count. But a lot of those same hitters might have swung at the third pitch, a rise hanging tantalizingly in front of someone expecting something close. Arioto was tempted but checked her swing almost as soon as her hands started back, passing on a pitch that, in all likelihood would have produced nothing more than a foul ball. After the obligatory strike on the 3-0 pitch, she again held off on a 3-1 pitch low and inside that was definitely out of the strike zone but close enough to draw its fair share of swings.

A lot of really good hitters would have been in the box with a 2-2 count and largely blameless for it (and, sure, some of the really good ones might have been on base after hitting a pitch they didn’t have much business hitting). Instead, Arioto was jogging to first base to give Team USA runners on first and second with no outs, the start of an inning in which some misplays from the Czech Republic eventually helped the Americans extend a 3-0 lead to 5-0.

I’ve never seen Ben Gibbard tune a guitar or watched Mario Batali shop for vegetables. I’d like to do both before I pass. But I have seen Val Arioto play chess to a pitcher’s checkers, and as master craftsmanship goes, that ain’t bad.

Anyway, it’s July and I remain sweltering in Connecticut, instead of where I’d rather do my sweltering: Oklahoma City.

So please allow me some five-part softball ramblings.

1. Brittany Schutte is Alex Morgan
Excuse the soccer crossover, but it’s difficult to get the Women’s World Cup out of the brain. If it isn’t already, what should gradually become apparent as all the chatter about the final loss against Japan, the sustained drama, the painful penalty kicks and Hope Solo’s burgeoning (and deserved) mainstream acclaim recedes from post-WWC high tide is that the United States has a world-class striker in the making in former Cal star Alex Morgan. Lauren Cheney, Amy Rodriguez and a host of others will continue to have major roles, but if that isn’t the last major international tournament for a long time in which Morgan comes off the bench, then Pia Sundhage has some explaining to do.

Wait, I was talking about softball, right? Sorry.

Anyway, the point is that what you saw from Morgan in Germany? Brittany Schutte is ready for the same kind of showcase in Oklahoma City. Come to think of it, Schutte is used to putting on a show at Hall of Fame Stadium, given her penchant for home runs in the Women’s College World Series, but this could mark her arrival on the international stage. Make no mistake, just as Morgan had the benefit of Abby Wambach alongside side on the pitch, Schutte is well served by having Katie Cochran ahead of her in the Team USA order. Cochran is the offensive anchor of pretty much any lineup in which her name appears, as she showed hitting .519 with seven RBIs in 10 games in the Canada Cup. But Schutte’s three home runs led the team in British Columbia, and her 11 RBIs were second only to Stacey May-Johnson. Cochran hit almost exclusively singles in the tournament, but teams are going to have to come after her with something easier to drive if Schutte keeps going over the fence in response to teams going around Cochran.

I am a big believer in statistics and objective analysis, not as gospel but certainly as indispensable tool. But I’m also of the belief that some truths reveal themselves in more subjective ways. And when it comes to softball, one of those things is the sound a ball makes coming off the bat and the reaction a swing produces in the observer. When Schutte makes contact and you’re close enough to hear it — really hear it — your head perks up. It’s as true on a clean single to the outfield as a blast over the fence. She’s one of those gifted few who has it, whatever it is.

Now, all that praise aside (and trust me, I’m holding back), it will bear watching how she handles her at-bats. She struck out eight times and walked once in Canada. Without seeing the at-bats, that’s obviously too small a sample size from which to discern much, but while she’s been a relatively high-strikeout hitter at Florida, she also works counts well and swings at what she can do something with.

She struck out twice against Ueno hitting fifth behind Cochran in the final in Canada. A rematch in Oklahoma City might be the perfect opportunity to pull a Morgan. And if not now, then soon.

2. Shouldn’t you have started at the beginning?
Probably. Such are the perils of not having an editor.

But speaking of the beginning, losing Natasha Watley and Caitlin Lowe in one fell swoop is going to slow down any lineup. The good news is that’s about the only race Michelle Moultrie and Rhea Taylor might lose — and bet on even that being a photo finish. Moultrie and Taylor topped the order for Team USA six times in the Canada Cup, including the team’s final four games. The two combined to hit .333 in those games (13-39), and while those numbers suffered in four games against Australia and Japan (5-for-27 with one walk), it will be interesting to see if they remain in those spots and are allowed to develop in the roles. That isn’t to say Kelly Grieve or someone else won’t emerge as a better option for one of the spots, but Moultrie and Taylor just has a certain ring to it.

Taylor’s power numbers were a mild disappointment in her senior season at Missouri, at least given the development she seemed to show the season before, but nobody is going to complain if she hits .406 for Team USA by going one base at a time, as she did with 12 singles out of 13 hits in Canada (she also stole three bases).

3. Who is the ace?
Don’t count on getting an answer to this one. The team split pitching duties in Canada relatively equally between Whitney Canion, Keilani Ricketts, Jordan Taylor and Chelsea Thomas, and there’s no reason to change that equation here. Even if you believe the team needs a clear pecking order for Whitehorse next year, there’s plenty of time for that, not to mention an entire college season for three of the four to continue showcasing their stuff. Ricketts started the final against Japan in the Canada Cup, and while that didn’t go there, it’s reasonable to think she might get a similar call on Monday in Oklahoma City — emphasis on the Oklahoma City part of that, considering that a Ricketts-Jessica Shults battery might help fill up some of those seats on a weeknight.

Nothing tests a pitcher quite like heat and humidity (although Japan’s lineup might come close), so count the weather as an opponent to be reckoned with for the Team USA staff.

For what it’s worth, Taylor allowed just six hits and four walks and struck out 33 in 21 innings in Canada.

4. Welcome back, Jessica Shults and Valerie Arioto
Last we saw Oklahoma and California, fans were out of luck in getting to watch two of the best players in college softball at their best, Arioto out because of an injury at the beginning of the season and Shults missing for all but one game in the World Series because of an illness diagnosed late in the campaign. Both are back on the field, Arioto in a more extensive role in the tournament in Canada.

Admittedly, watching Cochran and Arioto in a walk derby might not make for the most compelling television, but it would go down to the wire. (I’ve already used the photo finish bit, right? Drat.) Before the injury, Arioto was my pick for USA Softball Player of the Year, and the two things I’m most eager to see are Ashley Holcombe picking off a runner and Arioto working an at-bat.

5. What’s it going to take to mention Stacey May-Johnson?
Sorry, my bad. Admittedly, for reasons of employment, I’m drawn toward the travails of the players on Team USA with college eligibility remaining, but one of the best stories of the weekend will likely be someone who coached in college last season. An assistant at Iowa during the spring, May-Johnson is the elder stateswoman of this team at the advanced age of 27. (Did I mention that I nearly choked to death on my morning coffee today after realizing in the course of writing an email that “Glory” came out 22 years ago? I’m old.) And with experience, apparently, comes the ability to hit the bejeezus out of the ball. The master’s degree in physics probably doesn’t hurt, either.

Your USA schedule
July 21: USA vs. Czech Republic, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN)
July 22: USA vs. Australia, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN)
July 23: USA vs. Canada, 2 p.m. ET (ESPN, tape delay)
July 23: USA vs. Japan, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
July 24: USA vs. Great Britain, 5 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
July 25: Championship game, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

Let’s just say my feelings about the situation now are far more fond than they were in that moment.

The second moment was in first catching wind that U.S. coach Greg Ryan had decided to change keepers on the eve of a semifinal against Brazil. I had only recently arrived in Hangzhou, a stunningly beautiful city a hundred miles south of Shanghai that, at least on this occasion, offered humidity with the same approximate thickness as oatmeal. As a result, after sweating through a shirt in walking over to the stadium to scout out the scene in the morning, I opted to lighten my carrying load and leave my laptop in the hotel when it came time to walk back over for U.S. press conference in the afternoon.

The team had been available the previous afternoon before it (and we) left Shanghai, and I had everything I needed to file a preview. Short of one of the players spraining an ankle getting off the bus, what could possibly have changed in the 18-or-so hours since last we met? We’d sit down with Ryan for a few minutes, listen to him evade any substantive answers (like any coach) and be on our merry way.

Oops.

It didn’t take a genius, fortunately, to know all of that went out the window with that one decision, a move that was sure to become a talking point even back on the other side of the Pacific (although the exact magnitude were certainly aided by a 4-0 score and a few words from Hope Solo). This was the fuel on which modern media runs.

All of which is a roundabout way of getting to the sense of being caught completely off guard by what has become the flashpoint in the wake of Sunday’s World Cup final between the United States and Japan, the debate that filtered through the office today and even led “Pardon the Interruption” tonight (which I point out only to suggest that when something has infected PTI, which I enjoy and respect to no end, it has infected the entire sports world).

Did the United States choke?

Wait, what, really? That’s what we’re talking about?

You watched that game — you watched Alex Morgan emerging as a player the national team can build around for the next decade, you watched Homare Sawa’s flick, Ayumi Kaihori’s kick save and 120-plus minutes of persistence from two teams, and you came away with the profound conclusion that we’re being too soft on the United States today because they’re … women? That we should rip them to shreds because Abby Wambach blistered a long-range shot off the crossbar, Lauren Cheney couldn’t quite get the right touch around a defender on a redirection eight minutes in, Rachel Buehler and Ali Krieger botched a clearance in the heat of the moment and Carli Lloyd channeled Roberto Baggio in the shootout?

Oh for the love of lederhosen.

To start with, and I hesitate to bring reality into such close proximity to a carefully crafted media backlash, there are plenty of people who have followed this U.S. team for a lot longer than three or four weeks who are ready, willing and able to point out the flaws in Pia Sundhage’s team, both on this day and over the longer haul. And talk about them they will, in the days to come, long after the peanut gallery has moved on to more Ochocinco antics. Yet I somehow imagine that if the United States had lost 5-4 in penalty kicks or hit the posts less frequently in defeat, those people currently bloviating about whether we’re being too easy on them would pass on a chance to talk about tactics and strategy.

You (which paradoxically does not apply to anyone who has sifted through enough cyberspace to find these words, so maybe I should stop using it) weren’t invested in women’s soccer in the first place, or soccer at all, for that matter.

It’s easier to say they choked than to admit you don’t understand a sport well enough to offer reasoned criticism.

This was a good American team, but it was far from a perfect team. In truth, it got everything it could reasonably have been expected to out of its talent — and probably a little more — by dint of effort. Anyone who thought it entered the World Cup as any sort of favorite did so purely on the basis of it being No. 1 in FIFA’s ever-meaningless rankings.

Ask Luke Donald and Caroline Wozniacki how much a ranking is worth (and it pains me to say that of a fellow Dane).

Anyone who thought the United States entered Sunday’s final as a prohibitive favorite probably didn’t watch a single game Japan played leading up to the final, a classification that coincidentally likely applies to just about everyone pushing the choke agenda. What the Americans did in largely controlling possession was, in fact, a remarkable bit of soccer. Again, I know it pains these people to watch anything that doesn’t involve our flag, but go back and watch what Japan did to Germany and Sweden.

What, you’re back already? That was quick. Where was Fatmire Bajramaj anyway, am I right?

The United States created chances that they would, could and sometimes should have finished. Lots of them. Oodles of them, in fact. Best I can tell, nobody is suggesting otherwise. But choke? Give me a break.

If the United States choked, it would have lost 3-1 (ask Sweden about it). If the U.S. choked, it would have ceded control of the game to Japan, trying excessively hopeful long ball after excessively hopeful long ball in reply (ask Germany about it). The United States didn’t finish chances. And you know what? That happens in soccer.

You know why we didn’t talk about the United States choking? Because we just watched a fantastic WORLD CUP FINAL between two teams that offered the rarest of things in sports — a meaningful game that exceeds the hype.

It was a game in which even the imperfections added something, the flaws only emphasizing how much effort was expended in its creation. It was a game that seemed safe to leave to history, confident nothing could alter that story.

I should have known better, the lesson of China clinging to me like the Hangzhou air. There is always time for the media, my media, to ruin things.

I’m sorry; I’m getting all choked up.