In a week that saw No. 1 LSU nearly match its season-to-date loss total, dropping decisions at Mississippi State and Tennessee, both No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Florida made cases for reclaiming the top spot. The Ducks swept a series against No. 19 Arizona State, while the Gators beat No. 10 Florida State and won the first two games of a series against No. 15 Kentucky. But with that race for No. 1 unlikely to be settled to anyone's satisfaction anytime soon, consider instead these five developments from the week that was.

1. Before we move on

It's rarely easy to narrow down a nation's worth of players to a mere 25 finalists for USA Softball Player of the Year. It was so difficult this season, in fact, that the aforementioned organization behind the award included a bonus 26th player when it released the official list this past week. And while the nature of any such list is that we can argue about an inclusion here or an omission there, all those included are having fantastic seasons. That said, it's sometimes difficult for players from smaller schools to wedge their way into a discussion dominated by familiar names and programs. So as 26 move on, here are three players worth celebrating from off the beaten path.

Krista Menke, P, North Dakota State: One of the truly remarkable programs in college softball, if not all of college sports, is at it again. Refusing to bow to the reality that it is, you know, a softball program based in Fargo, North Dakota, that plays in the low-major Summit League, former super regional participant North Dakota State owns a pair of wins this season against Nebraska, as well as single wins against ranked Washington, DePaul, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Oregon State and Purdue. Compared to that, a weekend sweep of South Dakota State this past week was grunt work. But that didn't stop Menke, who threw 515 pitches in about a 24-hour span during the Summit League tournament a season ago and then beat Auburn in an NCAA regional, from doing what she does. The senior ace allowed just two hits in 12 innings to win both of her starts against the Jackrabbits (granted, she also survived -- or perhaps we say scattered -- eight walks and two hit batters in one of those one-hitters). The pitcher of record in all but one of the aforementioned nine wins this season against programs with more resources, she posted a 2.21 ERA with 73 strikeouts in 57 innings in those appearances.

Ivie Drake, C/DP, Georgia State: The only freshman who made the list of 26 finalists was James Madison dual-threat pitcher and slugger Megan Good, herself a success story beyond the biggest conferences. And that in a season in which a lot of newcomers are holding their own in the Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC. But good luck proving any of them, even Good, have been demonstrably more productive than Drake. The same weekend that sophomore teammate Megan Litumbe broke Georgia State's single-season home run record and senior Callie Alford the program's career RBI record, Drake continued to show why she might hold those and most of the school's records by the time she's done. She hit three home runs in the team's four games this past week and is hitting .463 with a .933 slugging percentage and .556 on-base percentage on the season. Entering the weekend, she ranked in the top 15 nationally in all three stats.

Brittany Fortner, OF, Wichita State: It says something meaningful that the best Missouri-born hitter on the Shockers might not be former University of Missouri standout and Team USA alum Nicole Hudson, now a first-year assistant coach. Fortner is at least on a trajectory in her junior season that would make it a debate. Drake (the school in Iowa, not the catcher from Georgia State) still rules the Missouri Valley, but Wichita State swept four games this past week and has answered a seven-game losing streak by winning nine of its past 10 games. Fortner, as usual, fueled the run this week. She hit .750 (9-for-12) through a midweek win against Tulsa and a weekend conference sweep of Illinois State, the production including two doubles and a home run. An all-conference selection a season ago as a sophomore, her .443 batting average this season leads the league by nearly 60 points. She also leads the MVC in on-base percentage and is third in slugging percentage. In more than 360 plate appearances the past two seasons, she has just 16 strikeouts.

2. If the object is to score the most runs ...

Arizona has played 37 innings of softball thus far in April. It has scored 78 runs. That the Wildcats, with that kind offense, are still trying to shore up a seed of any kind in the NCAA tournament is proof enough that this isn't a complete team. But it might be the most entertainingly incomplete team in the country.

Senior Hallie Wilson drove in eight runs for high-scoring Arizona in a three-game series with UW. Graham Hays

The most recent experiment as to the degree to which offense can carry a team came in a three-game series against Washington, itself conducting similar tests. In fact, Washington entered the series third in the nation in runs per game, three spots ahead of Arizona (neither team ranks in the top 100 nationally in ERA). Predictably, the teams combined for 65 runs, with at least seven runs necessary to win any game. Arizona sophomore Katiyana Mauga had three hits in the series, all of which were home runs. Hallie Wilson went 5-for-9, walked four times and drove in eight runs. Eight Wildcats hit at least one home run. And on and on the offensive highlights go. After squandering an 8-4 lead in the final two innings of the middle game, Arizona took a 15-2 lead in the finale and eventually won 18-10.

We've seen what happens when the offense stalls, namely losses to Florida and Auburn on the same day in March by a combined 30-2 margin, but it is going to be entertaining to watch this team try to hit its way to Oklahoma City.

3. Utah finally packs the brooms

There might not be a coach in the country who did a better job the past few seasons than one who didn't make the NCAA tournament during that run. Could the latter part of that equation change this season for Utah's Amy Hogue?

Thrown in a deep end worthy of the Pacific Ocean when her program was dropped into the Pac-12 in 2012, Hogue and the Utes proved resilient. After a 2-22 conference record that first season, they made Salt Lake City a tough place to come for visiting teams, most of which arrived ranked. What they didn't do was win much on the road, as in two wins away from home in three seasons against Pac-12 opponents. They matched that total in one weekend at Stanford during the final week of March this year. Then they went to Oregon State last week and did it one better. With a sweep of the Beavers in Corvallis, Oregon, Utah has now won seven of its past nine conference games and is not only 29-14 overall, but just one game shy of a .500 record in the league.

Freshman pitcher Katie Donovan won both of her starts against Oregon State, including a one-hitter in the opening game, and trails only a pair of Team USA selections, Oregon's Cheridan Hawkins and UCLA's Ally Carda, in ERA among Pac-12 pitchers. With two of its final three series at home and a top-40 RPI, Utah controls its own fate.

4. The other record chase in Oklahoma

Arizona coach Mike Candrea will at some point next season pass former Fresno State coach Margie Wright to become the winningest coach in NCAA history, assuming Michigan's Carol Hutchins doesn't get there first in what could be a photo finish that comes down to scheduling and weather cancellations early next season (Hutchins trailed Candrea by 15 victories when the season began but cut the deficit to 11 wins after her team's weekend's sweep of Rutgers that gained it sole possession of first place in the Big Ten).

Utah freshman Katie Donovan won both of her starts against Oregon State. Courtesy Utah Athletics

That is how the list will look in the NCAA record book, but whoever gets to 1,458 wins first in that race will actually be the second to get there from a four-year college. While the softball world waited to see if one notable record would fall at the hands of someone from the University of Oklahoma -- Lauren Chamberlain is still one home run shy of tying Stacey Nuveman's career record after a weekend sweep against Texas -- Oklahoma City University coach Phil McSpadden recorded career win No. 1,458, all at the NAIA school located less than 10 miles from ASA Hall of Fame Stadium, home each year to the NCAA Women's College World Series and something of a shrine.

Not that McSpadden rode the coattails of that event or even the more well-known program a few more miles south in Norman. When Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso led the Sooners to a national championship in 2000, it changed both the World Series and the landscape of softball in the state that is home to the Amateur Softball Association, but McSpadden won his fifth NAIA national championship the same season. Three more have followed, and his current team is 37-1, ranked No. 1 and hitting .380 -- the exact same average as the Sooners, who lead the NCAA in that category this season (adding even blood to the connection, Oklahoma City senior Carissa Turang, hitting .418, is the sister of former Oklahoma national champion Brianna Turang -- now Brianna Way).

5. A welcome return in Louisiana

Another week, another example that Louisiana-Lafayette remains a championship contender in mid-major clothing. And yet rarely has more of the same seemed better news. The story in Lafayette wasn't that the Ragin' Cajuns swept two games against ranked Baylor (a third game was canceled due to weather), although the wins not only solidified the home team's place in the top 10 but helped its case for potentially hosting an NCAA tournament super regional for the second season in a row (next week's trip to Oregon will also be key on that front). Lexie Elkins hit a home run, naturally. The player of the year finalist has 11 home runs in her past 12 games. Jordan Wallace pitched a gem, her first seven-inning performance in nearly a month. Basically, the Ragin' Cajuns played like a top-tier team. As usual.

But the story in Lafayette was that Michael Lotief was back in the dugout. One of a kind, in ways that he himself would likely accede both aggravate and endear (occasionally simultaneously), the lawyer-turned-coach with the thick Cajun cadence had missed the team's previous two series while tending to what the school termed a throat-related medical issue. Lotief, of course, battled throat cancer earlier in his life, its effects on his voice as evident as the accent that speaks to his Louisiana roots. The sport is better with him in a dugout, so here's hoping he's back for good.