Ole Miss, Mississippi State each earn NCAA Softball Regional berths

SEC Tournament champion Ole Miss and Mississippi State both earned trips to the NCAA Softball Regional. Ole Miss earned a No. 12 national seed and will host an NCAA Regional.

▪ The Rebels will play Southern Illinois at 8:30 p.m. Friday night.

▪ MSU will play BYU in the Salt Lake City Regional at 5 p.m. Thursday night in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ole Miss earned the SEC’s automatic berth into the field of 64 by winning the conference tournament. The Rebels beat MSU, Alabama, top-ranked Florida and LSU for its first-ever softball crown.

Other teams in the Oxford Regional are North Carolina and Arizona State, who play at 6 p.m. Friday. The Oxford Regional is paired against the UCLA Regional. The winners would advance to a Super Regional on Memorial Day weekend.

Former Harrison Central High and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College pitcher Kaitlin Lee leads the Rebels, earning Tournament MVP honors in a 5-1 finals’ victory over LSU. Lee pitched every inning of the SEC tournament, the first pitcher to do so since Alabama in 2010.

If the Bulldogs win, they will face the Utah-Fordham winner. Utah is the 11th national seed.

Other SEC teams chosen to host regionals were seventh-seeded Auburn, No. 8 seed Tennessee, No. 9 seed Texas A&M, No. 13 seed LSU, No. 14 seed Kentucky and No. 16 Alabama.

Thirteen SEC teams earned NCAA Tournament bids, the most ever from one conference.

This story was originally published May 14, 2017 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Ole Miss, Mississippi State each earn NCAA Softball Regional berths."