San Diego State will play Virginia Tech in the NCAA Los Angeles Regional at UCLA’s Easton Stadium at 3 p.m. Friday.
It is the 14th NCAA tournament bid in softball for the Mountain West regular season and tournament champion Aztecs (31-18) and third straight under third-year head coach Stacey Nuveman Deniz.
The four teams at the regional include SDSU, which earned an automatic bid to the tournament, the No. 15/15 Hokies (39-12-1), No. 6 seed UCLA (37-10) and Grand Canyon (48-11). Play continues through Sunday, when the regional winner will emerge.
The NCAA Los Angeles Regional will be broadcast live on ESPN Networks with San Diego State and Virginia Tech playing on ESPNU.
San Diego State, 22-26 all-time at the NCAA championship. is the only team to make the NCAA tournament from the MW.
The Aztecs are playing in Los Angeles for the sixth time out of their 14 appearances in a NCAA regional and own a 13-10 record at Easton Stadium. Last season, the Aztecs won all three games in Los Angeles to advance to the super regional, beating Liberty 7-0, Grand Canyon 6-0 and Liberty again 6-3. Â
In the Salt Lake City Super Regional, the Aztecs took the first game 4-3 against No. 17/15 Utah, but the Utes bounced back to eliminate them.
The national tournament features 64 teams, with four teams each participating at 16 regional sites in a double-elimination tournament.
Regional winners advance to super regional competition for a best-of-three series from May 23-26 at eight campus sites. The remaining eight teams advance to the Women’s College World Series (WCWS), an eight-team, double-elimination tournament with the championship final being a best-of-three series.
The WCWS will begin May 30 at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City.