virginia tech looks to make noise in ncaa tournament

Nick Cheshire

May 20, 2021

Two years in the making, the NCAA softball tournament is finally back, and so are the Hokies.

The field of 64 is set, and the top seeds consist of familiar and predictable favorites, Oklahoma, UCLA, Alabama, and Florida, the top four teams in the final NCAA rankings.

The top sixteen teams, chosen as hosts for the regional round, does not include Virginia Tech, who was originally chosen as one of the twenty potential host cities.

The Hokies were ultimately left off the final list of sixteen after a lackluster showing down the stretch, including a four-game sweep at the hands of Notre Dame and a semifinal exit to top-seeded Clemson in the ACC Tournament.

Besides the top four, other notable regional hosts include a pair of ACC powerhouses, namely the perennially contending Seminoles and the ACC Tournament champion Blue Devils.

Like Virginia Tech, Clemson was excluded from the batch of host cities on selection day after being chosen as a potential regional site.

The Hokies find themselves in the Tempe region, hosted by No. 15 Arizona State (32-14), 10 years removed from its 2011 NCAA title. The Sun Devils will host Southern Illinois (37-14), the Missouri Valley champions, on Thursday at 10 p.m.

Virginia Tech (33-13), the No. 2 seed in the region, will take on the West Coast Conference champion BYU Cougars (36-15) in its first matchup on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

BYU clinched an automatic bid by winning its seventh-straight conference tournament, returning to the NCAA Tournament for the 16^th straight year.

Violet Zavodnik, the WCC player of the year, and Rylee Jensen-McFarland, who hit .400 and tallied 18 home runs, look to lead BYU to its second super regional appearance in program history, the first since 2010.

The tournament follows the traditional double-elimination format for the first round, emphasizing the importance of winning the first game or two to pave an easier path to the super regional.

Thursday’s winners will meet on Friday at 4 p.m., with the winner of that game advancing to the regional final undefeated while the other three teams duke it out in the elimination bracket for a crack at the top team.

Two years ago in the Lexington regional, the Hokies’ first NCAA tournament appearance under Pete D’Amour was cut short by a high-powered Kentucky team that held the Hokies to a measly two runs in two games.

This year’s Virginia Tech team, led by a thunderous offense and Keely Rochard, the ACC pitcher of the year, look to rewrite the narrative and prove to the nation that the committee made a mistake by not choosing Blacksburg as a regional host city.