Tennessee softball seeded national No. 3 in 2024 NCAA Tournament. Here's a look at bracket
Tennessee softball earned the highest NCAA tournament seeding in program history Sunday when it was selected as the No. 3 national seed.
The Lady Vols (40-10) were selected as a top-eight seed for the second straight year after winning back-to-back SEC regular-season championships. They'll host both the NCAA regional and super regional, should they advance. Before last season, the last time Tennessee was a top-eight seed was 2017.
When the Lady Vols were a No. 4 seed last season, the previous highest seed in UT history, they made a run all the way to the Women's College World Series semifinal, where they fell to Florida State.
Tennessee will host Dayton, Miami (Ohio) and Virginia in a double-elimination regional at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium. The Lady Vols will play Dayton (33-19) on Friday (2:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+), and Miami (48-7) and Virginia (32-18) will play in the first game Friday (noon, ESPN+).
The elimination game will be the last game on Saturday. The championship will be on Sunday, with the team coming out of the losers' bracket having to win twice.
The regional winner will move on to the May 24-26 super regional, where it will face the winner of No. 14 seed Alabama's regional, which has USC Upstate, Southeastern Louisiana and Clemson.
All 13 SEC teams made the tournament field, and eight teams were given national seeds. Florida is the No. 4 seed, followed by Missouri (No. 7), LSU (No. 9), Georgia (No. 11), Arkansas (No. 12), Alabama (No. 14) and Texas A&M (No. 16).
This marks the 21st NCAA tournament appearance overall and the 20th consecutive appearance for the Lady Vols, who have advanced to the postseason every year since 2004. Tennessee has hosted 19 consecutive regional rounds in Knoxville.
The Lady Vols opened the season ranked No. 2, which was their highest preseason ranking in a decade, and ended there as well. They dropped as low as No. 9 but were ranked in the top 10 the entire season and spent nine weeks ranked in the top 5. They ended the season ranked No. 7 in RPI.
Tennessee made history again by winning back-to-back SEC regular-season titles for the first time in program history. It didn't lose a single SEC series and ended with a 19-5 conference record, taking down seven ranked opponents.
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Tennessee coach Karen Weekly was named the SEC Coach of the Year for the second straight season and sophomore pitcher Karlyn Pickens won SEC Player of the Year, joining Monica Abbott as the only Lady Vols to win the award.
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The Knoxville Regional will have the top three home-run hitters in the country. Tennessee's Kiki Milloy leads the nation with 23 homers, and Indiana's Taryn Kern and Louisville's Taylor Roby are tied for second with 22 apiece.
NCAA Tournament Knoxville regional
FridayGame 1: Miami (Ohio) vs. Virginia, noon
Game 2: Dayton vs. Tennessee, 2:30 p.m. ET
Saturday
Game 3: G1 winner vs. G2 winner, 1 p.m.
Game 4: G1 loser vs. G2 loser, 3:30 p.m.
Game 5: G3 loser vs. G4 winner, 6 p.m.
Sunday
Game 6: G3 winner vs. G5 winner, TBD
Game 7: G6 winner vs. G6 loser (if necessary), TBD
Cora Hall covers University of Tennessee women’s athletics. Email her at cora.hall@knoxnews.com and follow her on Twitter @corahalll. If you enjoy Cora’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that allows you to access all of it.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee softball No. 3 in 2024 NCAA Tournament. Here's the bracket
