The Minnesota Golden Gophers will open play in the NCAA softball tournament Friday against McNeese State and if they win they’ll advance to face Washington or Northern Colorado.
Washington, the No. 7 overall seed in the tournament, is the host of the Seattle Regional and therefore is the favorite to advance from to the Super Regionals, which is a best-of-three series May 25-28 between the winners of the Seattle and Baton Rouge regionals with a trip to the Women’s College World Series on the line.
LSU, the No. 10 overall seed, is the favorite to come out of the Baton Rouge Regional.
Minnesota and McNeese State will play at 5:30 p.m. CT Friday, May 19. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
The Gophers went 37-17 during the regular season and finished third in the Big Ten.
While Washington is the favorite in the regional, the Gophers might have the best starting pitcher in Autumn Pease. She finished 24th in the nation with a 1.45 ERA in 52 starts this season and her 203.1 innings pitched was tied for third most in the country.
Pease struck out the fifth-most batters in the nation (256).
McNeese State went 44-14 in the regular season and had wins over Washington and LSU. The Gophers did not play Washington, Northern Colorado, McNeese State or LSU during the regular season.
Neither Minnesota nor McNeese was ranked in the top 25 of the May 9 ESPN.com/USA Softball poll, but the Gophers were ranked No. 25 in the May 8 D1Softball top 25.
