Ole Miss softball earns seventh straight NCAA Tournament bid
The 2023 season is not over for the Ole Miss softball team as it learned its postseason fate on Sunday, earning at-large bid in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Ole Miss (30-26) secured a berth to the NCAA Tournament for a seventh straight season and is heading to play in the Salt Lake City Regional hosted by No. 15 National Seed Utah (37-13). Southern Illinois (36-18) and Baylor (39-16) make up the rest of the four-team field.
The Rebels will take on Baylor in the opening round of the regional while host team Utah will play Southern Illinois.
Regionals begin on Friday and game times will be announced later. The Salt Lake City Regional is paired with the Los Angeles Regional and No. 2 National Seed UCLA.
Going 8-16 in the Southeastern Conference this season Ole Miss made a mini-run in last week’s SEC Tournament after upsetting No. 6 seed LSU in the second round. The Rebels were then eliminated by No. 3 seed Auburn in the quarterfinal round.
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Despite a losing SEC record Ole Miss finished with a RPI ranking of 35 after going 6-17 against Top-25 teams this season.
As a program Ole Miss never reached the NCAA Tournament until 2016 and have earned a bid every year since. There was not a NCAA Tournament in 2020 due to the COVID Pandemic.
The Rebels have advanced twice in six previous regional appearances — both as the host team — but have never made it out of the Super Regional round.
Ole Miss lost to UCLA in the 2017 Los Angeles Super Regional and were swept by Arizona in the Oxford Super Regional in 2019. If the Rebels can get out of Salt Lake City they will once again have a chance to secure its first Women’s College World Series berth in program history in Los Angeles.
All NCAA Tournament games will air across the ESPN networks and ESPN+.
