By Jennifer Floyd Engel

McClatchy Newspapers

BEIJING — Did you stay up and watch Texan Nastia Liukin win gold in the all-around Thursday?

Of course, you did. Everybody loves pixies.

Then you crashed and missed an entire day’s worth of non-Pixie, non-Plelps Olympic action. Luckily, you have friends in China who took notes while you were snoozing. What follows is what happened on Day 7 of the Olympics in Beijing:

Let’s play two ... A rainout led to a double dip Friday for USA softball. Game 1 featured an Olympic-record four home runs in 7-0 victory against Japan. Team USA then had to finish a rain-suspended game from Thursday, which actually had trailing 1-0, but they bounced back for an 8-1 victory.

Double, double ... The Williams sisters, Venus and Serena Williams, advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating the Japanese duo of Ayumi Morita and Ai Sugiyama in straight sets.

From The Great State of Texas ... Texans were everywhere Friday, shooting, judo-ing and cranking home runs.

Dallas-ite Jayson Nix homered to force Cuba to extra innings, but Team USA lost 5-4 in 11. Aggie archer Vic Wunderle beat the reigning world-champion to reach the final eight but lose to No. 1-seeded Juan Rene Serrano in the quarterfinals. And Arlington’s Daniel McCormick went 2-2 in judo matches and finished ninth in his first Olympic experience.

Row, row, row your boat ... Rowing has a chance to add to the U.S.’s gold stash after men’s quad scull team—Matt Hughes, Sam Stitt, Jamie Schroeder and Scott Gault—advanced to Sunday’s final with a strong performance Friday.

Medal count ... Bronze may not be gold but they are still medals. And thanks to 18 of them, the U.S. has a 44-37 lead over China in the medal count.

What to watch today ... Do yourself a favor, if you watch one event of this Olympics, make it tonight’s 100 meter butterfly race featuring Michael Phelps as he attempts to tie Mark Spitz’s mark of seven gold medals in a game. What makes this one TiVo-worthy is he has real competition in Texas-ex Ian Crocker and Serbia’s Milorad Cavic.