Mizzou softball is hosting an NCAA Tournament regional. Here's who will come to Columbia
Missouri softball turned its Cinderella trip to the SEC Tournament championship game into the opportunity to host a regional in the NCAA Tournament.
The Tigers were given the 15th overall seed in the national tournament.
“It was so awesome to actually see our name on there,” outfielder Brooke Wilmes said after Sunday's selection show. "During the middle of the season we didn’t think we were going to have this opportunity, so just the fact that we’re going to be able to come out and play in front of our home crowd again is going to be such an awesome feeling.”
The first opponent for Missouri will be Missouri State, which earned an automatic bid to the tournament by winning the Missouri Valley Conference championship on Saturday.
It will be the first time the Tigers have played the Bears since 2015.
In that game, Missouri won by shutout, blanking the Bears 6-0 in Springfield. Tigers head coach Larissa Anderson said the opportunity to play an in-state opponent will be a motivator for the Tigers.
“They would like nothing better than to come into our house and ruin it for us,” Anderson said. “We have to realize that they’re going to have an unbelievable amount of energy.”
Missouri will take on the Bears at 1 p.m. Friday in a game that will be televised on the SEC Network. The other two teams in the regional, Illinois and Arizona, are scheduled to play at 3:30 p.m. Friday.
The winner of the double-elimination regional will move on to the super regional round, which will be hosted by the top eight remaining seeds.
Missouri was the seventh seed going into the SEC Tournament but pulled off wins against Auburn, Alabama and Tennessee to make its first championship game appearance since 2013. The Tigers fell to Arkansas in the title game 4-0.
"I couldn’t be more proud of them and the run we’ve made these last couple weeks,” Anderson said. “They absolutely deserve this opportunity to host and play at home and make a great run through the NCAA Tournament.”
Earlier in the year, it appeared the Tigers were nowhere near the path to hosting a regional like they did last year. Missouri had a shaky start in the SEC.
After getting swept by Ole Miss, Anderson held a team meeting and told her players their goals needed to change.
"We were actually counting games to make sure we could get above .500 and have an opportunity to go in the NCAA Tournament and we needed eight wins,” Anderson said. “When we got that eighth win we actually celebrated, we’re going to be able to go to the show this year, because it was really that sticky at that moment.”
After super regionals May 26-29, the remaining eight teams will head to Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series, which consists of a double-elimination tournament, with the final two teams competing in a three-game series.
The WCWS will run from June 2 through June 9 or 10.
Matt Stahl is the Missouri athletics beat reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune. Follow him on Twitter @mattstahl97.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri softball will host NCAA tournament regional after SEC success
