Virginia Tech Softball Heads To Athens For NCAA Regional

Virginia Tech and Pete D’Amour will travel to Athens, Ga. for the NCAA championship. (Jon Fleming)

For the fourth consecutive season, Virginia Tech softball (37-18, 14-10 ACC) received a bid to the NCAA championship. The Hokies will travel to Athens, Ga. to compete in a regional hosted by Georgia (39-13), who was seeded 14th nationally.

“We’re obviously excited to be selected to the NCAA tournament for the fourth consecutive year,” Tech head coach Pete D’Amour told Tech Sideline. “I hesitate to comment on our thoughts about going to Athens. All regionals are hard — we’re playing teams that have earned the right to play in the postseason. I think this will be the fifteenth regional I’ve coached in and none have been easy.

“We have the ability to make a good showing this week. Our pitching needs to be sharp, our defense has to be solid and we need to keep stringing good at bats together.”

This will be Virginia’s Tech’s 12th NCAA appearance. The Hokies advanced to the super regionals in the last two seasons, as well 2008, when Angela Tincher led the program to the College World Series. Tech has a 25-25 overall record in the NCAA tournament.

The double-elimination regional will begin on Friday, May 19 with the Hokies facing Boston (51-8), the Patriot League champions, at 2 p.m. ET on the ACC Network. The Terriers were ranked in this week’s USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Coaches Poll for the first time since 1996.

Georgia opens play against North Carolina Central (19-33) at 4:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+. The Eagles qualified for the NCAAs by winning the MEAC championship this weekend with a 6-2 win over Coppin State.

The winner of the Athens regional will match up with the winner of the Tallahassee regional in the NCAA Super Regionals on May 27-28. ACC champion Florida State is the No. 3 overall seed in the postseason and hosts a regional that includes Marist, South Carolina and UCF.

The ACC received six bids to the tournament, including three top-16 seeds. The Seminoles are the No. 3 seed while Duke earned the No. 8 seed, meaning they’ll both host super regionals should they advance. Clemson was awarded the No. 16 seed and is a regional host. However, should the Tigers advance, they potentially will travel to No. 1 Oklahoma for the next round.

Louisville will travel to Knoxville for a regional hosted by No. 4 seed Tennessee while Notre Dame was assigned to the Fayetteville region, hosted by No. 11 seed Arkansas.

Georgia enters the Athens regional as the favorite. The No. 13 Bulldogs posted a 17-7 mark in the SEC and were 26-6 at home this season. They lost their last three games and were eliminated in the SEC tournament quarterfinals by South Carolina (2-1 in eight innings). On top of that, they dropped their last two regular season games to No. 15 LSU, 9-1 (eight innings) and 2-1.

Tech Sideline will have a preview of the Athens regional later in the week. For a full look at the NCAA bracket, click here.

18 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. A team -VT limited in pitching – reality is 1-2 at best- – why coaches feel 2 pitchers will carry you is joke- FSU has 7 quality pitchers-

  2. “The Terriers were ranked in this week’s USA TODAY/NFCA Division 1 top 25.” What were they ranked?

    1. They were ranked #25 by the coaches.

      I’ve been writing the preview – they will be a tough out!

    1. Sure, but isn’t it okay to drop the “University” part, similar to calling the University of Georgia just “Georgia”?

  3. I don’t expect us to go far this year but glad the ladies made the tournament, 4 years in a row is great consistency and something to be proud of and build on!

    1. It’s a good team, not a great team which of course depends on having a world beater in the circle. So, not holding my breath but a win or two would be nice.

    2. Ya never know. Tournaments are a foreign country; they do things differently there.

  4. Good luck Hokie ladies. We’ll be watching and rooting you on!!!
    GO HOKIES!

  5. Not to engage in happy talk but that sounds like the best deal VT could get especially with what appears to be a slumping #14 Ugag. One game at a time of course and Boston probably isn’t a slouch, Get well and let’s win this one. Yes, there is a chance.

    1. Agreed. This looks like one of the most favorable regionals for VT. They should not overlook BU though. They have 2 really good pitchers and beat GT, BC, Baylor and Penn State. If we can win this regional then its a rematch with FSU. I actually like that matchup since our hitters have seen their pitchers in 4 games already. Let’s go Hokies!!!

  6. ACC actually got 6 bids, including 3 Regional hosts (2 of which are possible Super Regional hosts). Pretty decent showing for the conference. Would be nice to get to the point where we can get 7 or 8 regularly in the tournament.

  7. Sounds like uga might be slumping at just the right time!
    Go Lady Hokies!

Comments are closed.