Softball Headed Back To Lafayette Regional, NCAA Tournament
May 11, 2015 | Softball
STARKVILLE, Miss. – For the fourth time in as many seasons, the Mississippi State softball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament and the Lafayette Regional for the second-consecutive season.
State will be joined by Baylor (38-14), Big Sky Tournament Champion Weber State (38-17) and the hosts Louisiana-Lafayette (39-9), who earned the No. 13 overall seed in the tournament after winning the regular season Sun Belt title.
The double-elimination action will commence on Friday with MSU taking on Baylor at 5:30 p.m. CT. The regional-opener will air on ESPN3 through WatchESPN.com and the Watch ESPN app.
Head coach Vann Stuedeman has now led the Bulldogs to 33-plus wins and an NCAA Tournament berth in each of her first four seasons at the helm of the program. The Bulldogs have now reached four-straight NCAA Tournaments for just the second time in program history, with the first stretch having come from 2002 to 2005.
MSU will make its 12th NCAA Tournament appearance in its 19th season as a member of the Southeastern Conference, with an overall record of 11-22 in the regional round. All 12 of the appearances have come since the 2000 season. The Bulldogs have won a regional game in each of the past two seasons and have never advanced to the super regional round of play.
In the 2014 Lafayette Regional, State went 1-2 by beating Texas Southern and falling to Texas twice, but did not face host ULL. MSU is 0-3 all-time against Baylor with the two teams having met in Gulfport, Miss. in a game that the Bears won 1-0 in eight innings.
State is 3-12 all-time vs. ULL, while Weber State and MSU never having met in the history of the two programs.
Having a mounted an overall record of 35-19 and a 10-14 mark in SEC play, the Bulldogs jumped into the national rankings for the first time since 2009 as they checked in at No. 24 during week six of this season.
The SEC led all leagues with 11 teams selected to the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
For more information on the MSU softball program, follow "HailStateSB" on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also find all-access coverage of the Bulldogs on SnapChat by searching for "HailStateSnap."
