USD Faces Nebraska to Open Lincoln Region

The University of South Dakota will be in Lincoln, Nebraska this weekend for the regional round of the NCAA softball tournament as the Coyotes will take on the University of Nebraska Friday.

South Dakota, the four seed in the Summit League tournament, would beat Kansas City in the first round before beating the top seed Omaha to reach the winner’s bracket championship as the Yotes beat rival South Dakota State to reach the Summit League championship. USD would lose to Omaha in the first chance to win the conference tournament, but came back from a 2-1 win to make the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. Now, they get one of the top four national seeds in Nebraska to open the tournament along with having Louisville and Grand Canyon in their region. It’s a double elimination format so USD will play again on Saturday regardless of the outcome on Friday. Brooke Carey leads the Yotes with a .343 average while Sara Iburg leads the teams with five homers and 29 RBIs. Madison Evans has started 30 of the 55 games in the circle for USD and has an ERA of 3.96. Nebraska comes in at 46-6 while Lousiville is 44-12 and Grand Canyon is 52-8. USD is coming in at 20-34-1. South Dakota lost to Grand Canyon 1-0 back on February 14, the only game against any of the three teams at the regional.

Louisville and Grand Canyon will start the regional at 3:00 Friday before Nebraska faces South Dakota at 5:30. A full schedule of the regional can be found below. Games are available to watch on the ESPN Networks. KCCR will have coverage of the Women’s College World Series at the end of May and beginning of June.