COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M softball team begins its postseason run at the NCAA Norman Regional hosted by No. 11 seed Oklahoma May 14-17, the NCAA softball selection committee announced Sunday. The Aggies will join Oklahoma, Central Arkansas and Lehigh at the four-team regional.
Texas A&M (38-18, 12-12 SEC) earned a bid for their 14th-straight and 26th-overall NCAA Tournament appearance. The Aggies will face Lehigh (39-7, 16-2 Patriot) in the first game of the regional on Friday.
The Division I softball championship sets a field of 64 teams. Thirty conferences were awarded automatic qualification, and the remaining 34 slots were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket. The top 16 teams were seeded nationally. Team pairings were determined by geographical proximity, with the exception that teams from the same conference were not paired during regional competition, when possible.
The regional winners advance to super regional competition for a best-of-three series May 21-24 at eight campus sites. The remaining eight teams advance to the WCWS, an eight-team, double-elimination tournament. The championship final will be a best-of-three-series. The WCWS will be conducted May 28-June 3 at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City.
All of Texas A&M's postseason games will be broadcast live and can be heard via 12thMan.com and RadioAggieland.com. To learn more about Texas A&M softball, log on to 12thMan.com and follow @AggieSoftball on Twitter.
COACH EVANS ON SELECTION:
"I'm excited. It was a huge possibility and it's a familiar place for us. We're used to playing OU and most of our players have played on that field. Lehigh is a great program. A lot of people don't know about Lehigh but they're the team that ended our season in 2006, sending the likes of Megan Gibson and Amanda Scarborough home early. They're a team we respect and we saw them again in 2011. They do a great job and they'll be a formidable opponent for sure."
TEXAS A&M TOURNAMENT FACTS:
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS ..........3 ('82 AIAW, '83-NCAA, '87-NCAA)Â
WORLD SERIES APPEARANCES ........... 11 (AIAW '79-80-81-82)
(NCAA '83-84-86-87-88-07-08)Â
NCAA POSTSEASON APPEARANCES .............. 25 ('83-84-85-86-87-88-90-91-94-96-99-00-02-03- 04-05-06-07-08-09-10-11-12-13-14)
LAST APPEARANCE:
In 2014, the Aggies traveled to Norman, Okla., to take on Hofstra and the reigning national champions, the Oklahoma Sooners, in the NCAA Norman Regional. A&M took two victories from Hofstra but fell twice to OU, ending the postseason run.Â