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Texas Longhorns seeded No. 6 in NCAA softball tournament
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas will be in the friendly confines of McCombs Field until the Women's College World Series after earning a top-eight national seed in the NCAA softball tournament.
The Longhorns are the No. 6 seed, the selection committee announced Sunday, and they'll open play at 3:30 p.m. Friday against Eastern Illinois (34-20). Central Florida (33-22-1) and Michigan (38-19) are the other teams playing in the Austin regional. The regional tournament format is double-elimination, with the winner advancing to a best-of-3 super regional round before the WCWS.
Eastern Illinois won the Ohio Valley Conference regular season and tournament championships, finishing 21-5 in conference play and beating Southern Illinois-Edwardsville 1-0 for the tournament title.
Michigan comes into Austin as one of the hottest teams with a Big 10 Conference tournament championship and six consecutive wins. The Wolverines were seeded eighth in their conference tournament and beat No. 1 Oregon and No. 2 UCLA on their way to the conference's automatic bid.
Central Florida beat Utah in the Big 12 Conference tournament before falling to Arizona. The Knights have a win over No. 3 overall seed Florida and they beat the Wildcats in a regular season series.
If the Longhorns make it through the regional, they're matched up with No. 11 seed Clemson for the super regional. South Carolina Upstate, Northwestern and Kentucky are playing in the Clemson regional.
The Longhorns finished the regular season 46-10 and 16-8 in the Southeastern Conference, but 4-4 in their last eight games after getting crushed by Texas A&M 14-2 in the SEC tournament semifinals.
The Aggies are the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. They'll start the postseason against Saint Francis. Marist and Liberty will also be at the Bryan-College Station regional.