The SEC is a premier conference in college athletics for a eason with success in sports across the board. That was proven again on Sunday with the latest achievement by their ladies out on the diamond in softball.
With the announcement of the field for the 2024 NCAA Softball Tournament, all 13 teams from the Southeastern Conference, which is the most from this year’s field, made it into the bracket. That includes half of the berths for the Regionals and three teams earning the right to host Super Regionals.
This comes after a solid week for the league down in Auburn, Alabama during the SEC Softball Tournament. In the end, No. 2 Florida won 6-1 over No. 5 Missouri on Saturday. That secured their sixth conference title in program history, which ties Alabama for the all-time lead.
No. 3 Tennessee (40-10), No. 4 Florida (46-12), and No. 7 Missouri (43-15) will all host throughout the opening rounds. LSU (40-15) just missed out on that opportunity as the No. 9 overall seed.
The Tigers will only host their opening regional along with four other programs. Georgia (39-16), Arkansas (36-16), Alabama (33-17), and Texas A&M (40-13) will also have regionals on their home fields during the opening weekend as well.
From there, the remaining five teams will be going on the road throughout the softball tournament.
Ole Miss (31-25) is the highest seed of the group with them heading to Lafayette to face Baylor. Kentucky (30-22) will go to Stillwater to play Michigan, Mississippi State (33-18) will travel to Stanford to face Cal State Fullerton, South Carolina (34-22) will go one state over to meet Utah in Durham, and Auburn (27-19-1) rounds it out in going to Tallahassee to match up with UCF.
Vanderbilt does not have a softball team as part of their athletic department.
Even with all that, though, the Southeastern Conference still has more to their victory lap. The top two seeds in the tournament are No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Oklahoma out of the Big 12. However, both programs are coming into the SEC in 2024. That adds the Longhorns, who are the No. 1 overall seed for the first time in school history, and the Sooners, the reigning three-time national champions, to this list to unofficially make it 15 berths out of the league.
It’s said that some things just mean more down in the Southeastern Conference. That was the case once again on Sunday evening with every one of their teams, including the two who are on their way, getting a chance to compete for a national title at the College World Series in Oklahoma City.
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