The path to the Women’s College World Series is set.
UCLA softball was named a No. 2 seed – and the No. 8 overall seed – in Sunday’s NCAA tournament selection show.
No. 7 seed South Carolina, Cal State Fullerton and Cal Baptist will join UCLA in the Los Angeles regional in a double-elimination format this weekend. One team will win the regional, while the other three teams will be eliminated from the tournament.
Whichever team advances from the regional will face the winner of the Tallahassee regional, which includes No. 3 seed Florida State, No. 6 seed UCF, Stetson and Jacksonville State. The winner of the super regional will head to Oklahoma City for the WCWS.
UCLA has wins this season against all three teams in its regional, beating Cal Baptist 13-6, Cal State Fullerton 13-11 and South Carolina 5-4. As for its potential super regional, UCLA lost 7-11 to Florida State in February, but it has not faced the other three Tallahassee regional teams.
In a change from past years’ seeding, this year’s tournament has the top-32 teams seeded into four quadrants, with four No. 1 seeds, similar to the March Madness system. No. 4 seeds and up – or the top-16 overall seeds – will all host regionals. No. 1 and No. 2 seeds are set to host a super regional – should they win their respective regionals.
Then-No. 9 overall seed UCLA traveled to then-No. 8 overall seed South Carolina for the super regional last year, where the Bruins pulled off a comeback after losing the first game to advance to the WCWS.
After heading into the Big Ten tournament as the No. 3 seed behind Nebraska and Oregon then losing in the final to Nebraska, the Bruins were seeded behind a No. 1 seed Cornhusker squad and ahead of a No. 4 seed Ducks team in the NCAA tournament.
UCLA will kick off its NCAA tournament run at the LA regional against Cal Baptist on Friday night at Easton Stadium.
