A little over 24 hours from their first ever Horizon League Conference championship, the Northern Kentucky University softball team found out where they were headed next to play in their first NCAA tournament.
The Norse held a watch party at Dead Low Brewing on Sunday evening for the NCAA softball tournament selection show. Just a few minutes into the show, NKU found out it was headed to the Knoxville regional with No. 4 overall seed Tennessee the host. They’ll also be joined with Louisville and Indiana. The regional is double-elimination with only one team advancing to the super regionals.
NKU (23-30) will open up with Tennessee (44-8) on Friday at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN+. Indiana (41-16) and Louisville (35-18) open up the regional at 2 p.m.
Winner’s then stay on the winner’s side of the bracket while the loser’s will play an elimination game on Saturday. Those game times are to be announced. The Knoxville regional is paired with the Austin regional featuring the No. 13 overall seed Texas. Seton Hall, Texas A&M and Texas State are also in the Austin regional.
NKU played just one of the three teams during the regular season, a 7-0 loss to Louisville back on March 2 in Louisville. Horizon League Conference tournament MVP Lauryn Hicks did not pitch in that game.
The Norse got to this point after going 4-1 in the conference tournament, defeating Youngstown State, Robert Morris and Oakland to get to the championship game. Oakland took the first game of the championship battle, needing to defeat NKU twice to repeat as conference champ. The Norse won the second game 2-1 to win the program’s first ever conference title and first ever berth into the NCAA tournament.
Sitting at 9-25 on April 8, NKU went 14-5 over their last 19 games to close out the season strong.
Hicks and Alicia Flores have powered the Norse in the circle, the team allowing just 54 runs during the 19-game stretch, including five shutouts and 12 games where they allowed two runs or less.
Ella LeMonier paces the team at the plate with a .333 batting average while Maddie Lacer (24 RBI), Jena Rhoades (20 RBI) and Sydni Barnes (21 RBI) are the top RBI collectors.
