The Virginia Cavaliers softball team is heading back to the NCAA Tournament. The ‘Hoos have now made their second consecutive tournament after the program had only been selected once before since joining the NCAA in 1982.
The Cavaliers are 37-17 (14-10 in the ACC) this season after finishing seventh in the conference in the regular season and then losing to Clemson in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals. It’s been another season of improvement under Hardin who has the ‘Hoos on an upward trajectory after a reinvestment in the program’s facilities in 2022.
Despite picking up a pair of wins in the Tennessee regional last year – beating Miami (OH) both times – UVA fell to the No. 3 Vols twice and were subsequently eliminated from the tournament. In 2025, Hardin and her squad will be gunning to improve upon that result and make a super regional.
To do so, Virginia will have to emerge as the best from the regional of No. 8 South Carolina, Elon, and North Florida. The Gamecocks are extremely battle-tested from SEC play. In fact, nine of the 16 regional hosts are SEC teams including seven of the top eight seeds. South Carolina finished seventh in the SEC regular season standings and are, somehow, the eighth overall seed.
UVA is the second- seeded team in the Columbia, SC regional and will open NCAA Tournament action against Elon on Friday, May 16 while South Carolina will take on North Florida.
The regionals are double elimination which, as always, puts enormous pressure on the first two games of the weekend. If the ‘Hoos can handle the CAA champs on Friday and then stage an upset of the Gamecocks (assuming they beat North Florida) on Saturday, then they’d be a win away from advancing. Lose either of those contests and life gets a whole lot trickier.
Stay tuned for more as scheduling information is released ahead of the weekend’s action.