By: Brett Greenberg
TUSCALOOSA, AL. - Alabama softball was awarded the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and will host Alabama State, Troy and Clemson in the regional round at Rhoads Stadium.
The Crimson Tide will play Alabama State in its opening game. Troy will play Clemson in the other first-round game. The four-team regional is played in a double-elimination format.
"We've played Alabama State twice already," Alabama coach Patrick Murphy said. "Troy came up for a tournament earlier in the year: Troy is a legit team that plays in a great conference."
"Obviously, you have Clemson, who has a great coach in John Rittman, who we've known for years, a great coaching staff. They're a young program, and for them to do what they did in their first full year as a program, kudos to them."
"We're looking forward to welcoming the three other teams and I think it's going to be a really good regional."
Clemson, the second seed in the Tuscaloosa Regional, is the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season champion and is ranked No. 10 in the final ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25 poll of the regular season. Alabama is ranked third.
Troy (36-15) will play Clemson (42-6) on Friday at 2 p.m. CT on ESPN3. The Crimson Tide (45-7) will play Alabama State (19-27) on Friday at 5 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
The NCAA Tournament field was revealed Sunday night.
The Tuscaloosa Regional is paired with the Lexington Regional, hosted by Kentucky. The winners of the regionals will play in the best-of-three super regional round, with the winner of that series will advance to the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City.
By virtue of its top-eight overall seed, the Crimson Tide will host in the super regional round if it advances out of its regional.
How the Crimson Tide won its sixth SEC championship: How Montana Fouts dominated Florida to lead Alabama softball to the SEC Tournament title
The SEC Tournament champions have won 13 games in a row, 12 against ranked opponents. Alabama defeated Florida on Saturday in the league tournament final in Tuscaloosa.
The other SEC teams included in the NCAA tournament 64-team field were Florida, Arkansas, LSU, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State and Texas A&M. Only South Carolina was left out.
The top 16 seeds are:
1. Oklahoma
2. UCLA
3. Alabama
4. Florida
5. Oklahoma State
6. Arkansas
7. LSU
8. Missouri
9. Tennessee
10. Florida State
11. Arizona
12. Texas
13. Duke
14. Kentucky
15. Arizona State
16. Washington
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