Softball Awaits Tourney Destination

On Sunday night, the Harvard softball team will discover its destination and its first opponent in the double-elimination NCAA Regionals beginning May 18.

That destination will likely be miles away from Cambridge. While Harvard (19-19, 11-1 Ivy) posted one of the most dominating Ivy seasons in recent history, winning the league by a full four games over Dartmouth (30-14, 7-5), the Crimson's .500 overall record will probably not be enough to keep the team in a local regional.

The tournament is divided into eight regionals, with six teams playing at each site.

"We could go anywhere," Coach Jenny Allard said. "[The NCAA] tries to do their best to keep teams in their own region, but the top eight teams in the country have to be in different regionals, and two teams from the same conference can't be in the same regional, so we'll probably be moved out."

In the northeast, the Ivy League, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, the Northeast Conference, the Atlantic 10, the Big East, the America East and the Patriot League all have automatic qualifiers for the NCAA Regionals. The best of these teams will get to host the six-team regional, but at most only four teams will stay. One team will lose its spot to one of the national top eight. Another spot will be lost to a Pacific 10 team, so that none of the eight likely Pac-10 qualifiers will end up in the same regional.

The other local teams that have already earned NCAA berths are MAAC champion Canisius (33-21), Big East champion Notre Dame (46-12) and Patriot champion Army (27-16-1). The Northeast, America East and Atlantic 10 will not determine their champions this weekend, but Long Island (28-17-1), Hofstra (38-18) and UMass (32-21) are the respective heavy favorites. Teams from these conferences generally do not get at-large berths to the tournament, but Big East runner-up UConn (37-17) has a chance this year.

"If we end up as the No. 5 team in our region we could end up staying," Allard said. But Allard expects that the Crimson will be a No. 6 seed in a faraway regional.

If Harvard is shipped out west, the environment will hardly be unfamiliar to many of the players on the team. The Crimson's entire pitching staff and the majority of its position players are from California. With seven representatives, the softball team has just as many Californians as the women's hockey team has Canadians. Thus, a year-ending trip out west just might be more desirable than a trip to either Hofstra or Notre Dame.

NCAA Softball will allow the top teams from each of six different regions to host regionals. The remaining two regional hosts will likely be Pac-10 teams, since the Pac-10 presently has the top three teams in the country.

This means that for the second straight season, No. 1 Washington (54-6), No. 2 Arizona (50-7) and No. 3 UCLA (36-10-1), the defending champion, will all host regionals. No. 4 Oklahoma (55-6), the Big 12's best team, and No. 6 Fresno State (47-12), the class of the WAC, will undoubtedly be top seeds and regional hosts as well. No team other than Arizona, UCLA, and Fresno State has won a national championship since 1987.

The remaining regional hosts will depend on the outcome of conference tournaments. Either No. 7 LSU (53-10) of the SEC and No. 8 Southern Mississippi (54-10) of Conference USA will ultimately be the top team in the south, while the winner of the Big Ten tournament--either No. 14 Michigan (40-13-1) or No. 15 Iowa (42-12)--, will likely host the remaining regional.

If Harvard ends up in a regional with the Big Ten champion or somehow manages to stay in a regional with the other northeastern teams, then the Crimson, as a sixth seed, would likely open against either the southern team that does not host, or a fourth- or fifth-place Pac-10 team like No. 5 Arizona State (39-16) or No. 9 Stanford (44-14).

As if the pressure of playing the top teams in the nation in the NCAA Regionals wasn't enough, finals begin on May 18 as well. The Harvard Registrar's Office, of course, makes absolutely no exceptions to its rules.

"We're going to have to bring a university administrator with us," Allard said. "Finals need to be given as close as possible to the actual date and the actual time."

So while most of the Crimson opponents in the tournament will have been done with school for at least two weeks, the Harvard players will be taking finals in between games. For the rest of the week, the Crimson players will need to find a way to keep their heads in the books and in the games.