SPORTS BRIEF: Softball draws Hofstra on Long Island for NCAA opening round

The Harvard softball team will play Hofstra in the opening round of the NCAA Division I Softball Championship, meeting the Hempstead Regional hosts Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m., the NCAA announced yesterday.

Also heading to Hempstead, N.Y. are Baylor, the tournament’s eighth overall seed, and Albany, the America East conference champion.

Those four teams comprise one of the 64-team tournament’s 16 regionals.

All teams play in a double-elimination format, with the winners and losers of the Harvard-Hofstra and Baylor-Albany games playing each other Saturday.

The winners of each regional advance to the Super Regionals, which will be played the following weekend.

The Crimson, which won the Ivy League with a two-game playoff sweep of Penn two weekends ago, faces an uphill battle to advance to the next round.

The Pride (40-13) won the Colonial Athletic Association championship and is making its 10th straight tourney appearance.

The Bears are traveling to Hempstead despite a 45-13 record and No. 8 national ranking, which could have merited a home regional.

The Great Danes finished with a 33-15 record and face Baylor on Friday at noon.

Harvard won the Ivy League for the fourth time in school history with a 31-13 overall record and a 14-6 mark in league play. This will be its third trip to the Championship, and its first since 2000.