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The Wildcats (45-11) earned the No. 13 national seed and will host the Tucson Regional on Friday. UA will open with the West Coast Conference champions Santa Clara (32-20).

Grand Canyon University (46-6) will face Ole Miss (37-17) in the Tucson Regional’s two and three seed match up on Friday.

During the regular season, UA beat GCU 7-3 in 8 innings on Mar. 19 in the first leg of a four-game road trip to the Phoenix area. The Wildcats went 3-1 at GCU and ASU.

Arizona hosted Ole Miss in the Tucson Regional in 2021 and the Super Regional in 2019 and 2021, sweeping the Rebels both occasions.

UA has never played Santa Clara. They are 15-0 against GCU since they started playing the Antelopes in 2014.

GCU beat the UA baseball team 9-4 in the Tucson Regional last year, dealing the first blow to the Wildcats, who went 0-2.

It is UA softball’s 37th NCAA tournament appearance.

The Wildcats ran up a streak of 35 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances that ended in 2023.

UA has made it to the Super Regionals 17 times and the Women’s College World Series 25 times. The eight-time national champions last reached the Super Regionals a year ago and their last WCWS appearance was in 2022.

Arizona is 104-12 in the NCAA Regionals, winning 33 of them and losing three.

The last time UA hosted the Regionals was in 2021. That was a streak of four years of hosting duties only interrupted by COVID-19 which lead to the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA tournament.

Should Arizona win the Tucson Regional, they will face the winner of the Fayetteville Regional. The hosts, No. 4 national seed Arkansas, would get a chance at revenge if they face the Wildcats.

Arizona won the Fayetteville Regional last season, including a 2-1 win over the Razorbacks. The other teams in the Fayetteville Regional are Oklahoma State, who UA went 2-1 against last season, Indiana and St. Louis.

With the addition of Oklahoma, the No. 2 national seed and Texas, the No. 6 seed, seven of the top eight seeds were from the SEC, with the only exception being No. 5 seed Florida State.

The SEC also got a record 14 teams in the Big Dance. The Big 12 got five of 11 in the tournament, with BYU being one of the first four out.

Big 12 regular season and tournament champions Texas Tech got the No. 12. The Red Raiders won three of four against Arizona.

Washington, who UA went 1-1 against, is going to the Lubbock Regionals.

Last year, the Big 12 had five NCAA tournament teams, including Oklahoma and Texas, who met in the WCWS championship series. The Sooners won 2-0 to take their fourth straight national championship.

Baylor, UCF and Oklahoma State were the other three Big 12 teams that made the tournament last year.

In the Big Ten tournament, eighth seeded Michigan knocked out top seed Oregon in the quarterfinals, the Ducks’ first game. Oregon had swept the three-game regular season series with the Wolverines.

Michigan would go on to beat No. 2 seed UCLA in the championship game 2-0.

UCLA’s Los Angeles Regional features three teams the Wildcats faced in the regular season, the Bruins, San Diego State and ASU. UA beat UCLA, the No. 9 national seed, in one game and won two of three against the Aztecs and Sun Devils.

Oregon got the No. 16 seed and the last hosting spot. Former Pac-12 rival Stanford will make the trip to the Eugene Regional.

Arizona went 2-0 against Stanford in the regular season.

The other Big 12 team in the tournament is UCF, who is going to the Austin Regional to potentially face former Big 12 rival Texas.

Arizona went 14-9 against the NCAA tournament field in the regular season and Big 12 tourney.

UA head coach Caitlin Lowe has made it to the NCAA tournament in three of her first four years at the helm, including a WCWS appearances and two trips to the Super Regionals. She was the first female head coach to reach the Women’s College World Series in their first season.

As a player she reached the NCAA Tournament four times, the WCWS three and won two national championships. As an assistant coach from 2012 to 2021 — all with the UA — she reached the Big Dance seven times, the Supers seven times and the Women’s College World Series twice.