Special to The Eagle
The Texas A&M softball team was one of six Big 12 teams picked as at-large teams for the 64-team NCAA Championship along with league tournament champ Missouri.
The Aggies, making their eighth straight appearance and 19th overall, were placed in the Gainesville (Fla.) Regional which will be hosted by national No. 1 seed Florida (55-3).
A&M (31-20) will play Lehigh (36-16-1) at 3:30 p.m. Friday in the double-elimination format. Florida (55-3) will face Florida A&M (30-30) in the other first-round game.
A&M beat Florida two years ago in Super Regionals to reach the Women's College World Series, then also beat Florida at the WCWS last year en route to a national runner-up finish. A&M lost to Lehigh twice at the Amhearst (Mass.) Regional in 2006.
"This regional is a really good challenge for our program," A&M head coach Jo Evans said. "We've had great success against Florida the last two years, so we'll use that to our advantage in terms of our confidence and understanding the kind of pitching we're going to see. But first we have to get by Lehigh and they beat us twice in the regional in 2006. We have a lot of respect for their program. They are very well coached and we're going to have to play very well to beat them."
The other Big 12 teams picked were Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas, Nebraska and Oklahoma State. OU, the regular-season champ which lost to Missouri (see B3), is the No. 7 national seed.
Baylor, Missouri and Oklahoma will also host. Nebraska was sent to the Knoxville (Tenn.) Regional, Texas was sent to the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) Regional and Oklahoma State was sent to the Tallahassee (Fla.) Regional.
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The blame game
