MCLA draws Williams in NCAA Softball opening round, Game to be played Friday in Williamstown

2015 NCAA Softball Tournament Bracket

North Adams, MA- The official NCAA Division III Softball tournament bracket was released this morning on NCAA.com and the MCLA Trailblazers, champions of the MASCAC, won't have to travel very far for their opening round contest.  The Trailblazers (15-20) drew regional host Williams College (30-6) in the opening round which begins on Friday afternoon in Williamstown.

The Trailblazers are in the NCAA field for the first time since 1995 after sweeping through the MASCAC Championships.  MCLA is led by first year head coach Jamie Trudeau, who is excited about the draw for the Trailblazers.

"Drawing Williams will be a great opportunity for our program.  Williams is a great team with strong pitching and some dangerous hitters," Trudeau said about the matchup.  The two teams met just seven days ago with the Ephs earning the sweep by scores of 8-3 and 5-0 in North Adams.

Regardless of opponent, Trudeau feels confident that her team is ready to play.  "Our program has shown great resiliency over the last three days and we know what it will take to get it done.  It's not how you start, but its how you finish," Trudeau went on to say.

The regional round will be held May 8-10. Four teams will compete at 14 regional sites and three teams will compete at two regional sites. The team advancing from each regional will compete in the super regional round May 15 and 16. The finals, hosted by the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and the City of Salem, will be held May 21-26 at Moyer Sports Complex in Salem, Virginia. All rounds will use a double-elimination format.

Forty-two conferences received automatic qualification (Pool A). Two institutions were selected from Pool B, which includes independent institutions and institutions from conferences that do not meet the automatic qualification criteria. The 18 remaining teams were selected on an at-large basis from automatic qualifying conferences and the remaining institutions in Pool B.

In 2014, Tufts defeated Salisbury twice in the championship series to win its second consecutive NCAA softball championship.

The conferences and teams that received automatic qualification were:

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference - Penn State-Behrend
American Southwest Conference - Texas-Tyler
Capital Athletic Conference - Christopher Newport
Centennial Conference - McDaniel
City University of New York Athletic Conference - Staten Island
College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin - Illinois Wesleyan
Colonial States Athletic Conference - Neumann
Commonwealth Coast Conference - Western New England
Commonwealth Conference - Lebanon Valley
Empire 8 - Alfred
Freedom Conference - DeSales
Great Northeast Athletic Conference -  Johnson & Wales (Rhode Island)
Great South Athletic Conference - Salem
Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference - Anderson (Indiana)
Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Central (Iowa)
Landmark Conference - Moravian
Liberty League - Rochester
Little East Conference - Eastern Connecticut State
Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts|
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association - Trine
Midwest Conference - Lake Forest
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Gustavus Adolphus
New England Collegiate Conference - Elms
New England Small College Athletic Conference - Tufts
New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference - Wellesley
New Jersey Athletic Conference - Ramapo
North Atlantic Conference - Husson
North Coast Athletic Conference - DePauw
North Eastern Athletic Conference - Penn State-Berks
Northern Athletics Conference - Aurora
Northwest Conference - Linfield
Ohio Athletic Conference - Heidelberg
Old Dominion Athletic Conference - Randolph-Macon
Presidents' Athletic Conference  - Thomas More
Skyline Conference - Farmingdale State
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Whittier
Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference - Texas Lutheran
St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Fontbonne
State University of New York Athletic Conference - SUNY Cortland
Upper Midwest Athletic Conference - St. Scholastica
USA South Athletic Conference - LaGrange
Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Wisconsin-Whitewater

The institutions selected from Pool B were:
Berry
Emory

The 18 institutions selected from Pool C were:
Alma
Averett
East Texas Baptist
Hope
Kean
Luther
MIT
North Central (Illinois)
Rowan
St. Thomas (Minnesota)
Salisbury
Simpson
Virginia Wesleyan
Washington U. in St. Louis
Wheaton (Massachusetts)
William Paterson
Williams
WPI

REGIONAL SITES (16):
Alfred, New York - Alfred, host
Atlanta, Georgia - Emory, host
Bloomington, Illinois - Illinois Wesleyan, host
Cortland, New York - SUNY Cortland, host
Decorah, Iowa - Luther, host
Greencastle, Indiana - DePauw, host
Lake Forest, Illinois - Lake Forest, host
Medford, Massachusetts - Tufts, host
Newport News, Virginia - Christopher Newport, host
Norton, Massachusetts - Wheaton (MA), host
Pella, Iowa - Central (Iowa), host
Rochester, New York - Rochester, host
Salisbury, Maryland - Salisbury, host
Union, New Jersey - Kean, host
Tyler, Texas - Texas-Tyler, host
Williamstown, Massachusetts - Williams, host