For the 17th consecutive NCAA Division I softball tournament, there will be a Knoxville Regional.
The Tennessee Lady Volunteers are among the 16 host teams for this week’s regionals, with coach Karen Weekly’s program the No. 11 national seed for the 64-team event that will be whittled to 16 for super regionals the following week and trimmed to eight for the Women’s College World Series that starts June 2 in Oklahoma City.
Tennessee is 39-16 overall and went 15-8 against Southeastern Conference competition in the regular season. Former Meigs County High School standout Ashley Rogers pitched the Lady Vols to a 1-0 victory in a 13-inning epic in their SEC tournament opener this past Thursday in Gainesville, Florida, but they lost 3-0 to Missouri in the quarterfinals the next day.
Missouri then lost 4-0 to Arkansas in the SEC title game, but both of those teams are among the league’s five national seeds. Arkansas (44-9) is seeded fourth, Alabama (41-11) is sixth, Florida (43-16) is 14th and Missouri (36-20) is 15th, meaning they’ll join the Lady Vols as regional hosts from the SEC.
Alabama’s regional will include the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (29-25) – which won the Southern Conference tournament as a No. 3 seed – Murray State (40-16-1) and Stanford (36-19).