Clemson softball in NCAA Tournament: Tigers to host regional as No. 16 seed
CLEMSON — Clemson softball entered Selection Sunday as a lock to make the NCAA Tournament but not guaranteed a national seed. The Tigers were on the bubble to host a regional thanks to their No. 14 RPI ranking and relatively low strength of schedule.
But the Tigers did enough to make it in. Clemson (46-9) will host a regional at McWhorter Stadium as the No. 16 national seed. They will open against UNC Greensboro (37-20) on Friday (3 p.m. ET, ESPNU).
Cal State Fullerton (33-19) and Auburn (40-17) are the other two teams in the Clemson regional. The Tigers and Titans play at 5:30 p.m. ET Friday (ESPN+).
The winners and losers of Friday's games will face each other Saturday and there will be an elimination game in the last game of the day Saturday. The championship game will be on Sunday, with the team coming out of the losers' bracket having to win twice.
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Clemson is playing in its third consecutive NCAA Tournament hosting a regional for the second straight year. Last season, the Tigers won the Clemson regional before falling to Oklahoma State in the Stillwater Super Regional.
"To be able to host our second regional in only our fourth year of existence, that's pretty special," Clemson coach John Rittman said. "Our team has worked extremely hard to get to this to this moment. Now the work starts. We have a very challenging regional here, and we're looking forward to hosting."
The Tigers were the third ACC team to earn a national seed. They joined No. 3 Florida State, which just won the conference tournament, and No. 8 Duke, the conference runner-up.
Clemson played UNC Greensboro twice this regular season, beating the Spartans 3-0 on March 10 and 6-1 on March 11.
If Clemson wins its regional, it will move on to face the winner of the Norman regional hosted by No. 1-seed Oklahoma. Since Oklahoma is the higher seed, it would host the super regional if it won its regional. If any other team won the Norman regional, Clemson would host the super regional.
"(Oklahoma is) daunting, but at the same time, we started this program on the mantra that we were going to shock the world," Rittman said. "That would be a great way to do it."
Christina Long covers the Clemson Tigers for the Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. You can follow her on Twitter @christinalong00 or email her at clong@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson softball earns No. 16 seed, will host NCAA Tournament regional
