INDIANAPOLIS — Top-ranked, two-time defending national champion Virginia Wesleyan heads a solid 62-team field for the 2019 NCAA Division III Softball Championship, chosen by the NCAA Division III Softball Committee and announced Monday at NCAA.com.
Forty-two conferences received an automatic qualification (Pool A), and 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.
Four teams each will play at 14 regional sites and the other two regionals will consist of three teams apiece. Games will be played Friday through Sunday (May 10-12), with the exception of the Bloomington, Ill., and St. Paul, Minn., regionals, which will go Thursday to Saturday (May 9-11).
Regional winners will advance to the May 17-19 Super Regional round, with the final eight teams after that heading to the University of Texas-Tyler for the finals on May 23-28 at Suddenlink Field.
All rounds will use a double-elimination format.
To see the complete bracket, click HERE
. For the latest regional rankings, click HERE. The latest Division III statistical leaders can be found HERE.
To watch a replay of the NCAA selection show, click HERE.
The conferences and teams that received automatic qualification were:
|
Conference |
School |
|
Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference |
Mount Aloysius |
|
American Rivers Conference |
Central (Iowa) |
|
American Southwest Conference |
East Texas Baptist |
|
Capital Athletic Conference |
Christopher Newport |
|
Centennial Conference |
Dickinson |
|
City University of New York Athletic Conference |
Staten Island |
|
College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin |
Illinois Wesleyan |
|
Colonial States Athletic Conference |
Wilson |
|
Commonwealth Coast Conference |
Endicott |
|
Empire 8 |
St. John Fisher |
|
Great Northeast Athletic Conference |
U of St. Joseph (Connecticut) |
|
Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference |
Transylvania |
|
Landmark Conference |
Scranton |
|
Liberty League |
Ithaca |
|
Little East Conference |
Eastern Connecticut State |
|
Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference |
Framingham State |
|
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association |
Calvin |
|
Middle Atlantic Conference Commonwealth |
Arcadia |
|
Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom |
Manhattanville |
|
Midwest Conference |
Lake Forest |
|
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference |
St. Thomas (Minnesota) |
|
New England Collegiate Conference |
Eastern Nazarene |
|
New England Small College Athletic Conference |
Tufts |
|
New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference |
Worcester Polytechnic Institute |
|
New Jersey Athletic Conference |
The College of New Jersey |
|
North Atlantic Conference |
Husson |
|
North Coast Athletic Conference |
DePauw |
|
North Eastern Athletic Conference |
Penn State-Berks |
|
Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference |
Milwaukee School of Engineering |
|
Northwest Conference |
Linfield |
|
Ohio Athletic Conference |
Otterbein |
|
Old Dominion Athletic Conference |
Virginia Wesleyan |
|
Presidents' Athletic Conference |
Saint Vincent |
|
Skyline Conference |
Farmingdale State |
|
Southern Athletic Association |
Birmingham-Southern |
|
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference |
Whittier |
|
Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference |
Texas Lutheran |
|
St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference |
Eureka |
|
State University of New York Athletic Conference |
SUNY Cortland |
|
Upper Midwest Athletic Conference |
Northwestern-St. Paul |
|
USA South Athletic Conference |
Maryville (Tennessee) |
|
Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference |
Wisconsin-La Crosse |
The institutions selected from Pool B were:
Emory
Thomas More
The 18 institutions selected from Pool C were:
Brandeis
Carthage
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Coe
Emory & Henry
Kean
Lynchburg
MIT
Piedmont
Randolph-Macon
Rowan
Saint Benedict
SUNY Geneseo
Trine
Wartburg
Williams
Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Wisconsin-Whitewater
REGIONAL SITES AND HOST INSTITUTIONS (16):
Atlanta, Georgia - Emory
*Bloomington, Illinois – Illinois Wesleyan
Cambridge, Massachusetts – MIT
Claremont, California – Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Cortland, New York – SUNY Cortland
Crestview Hill, Kentucky – Thomas More
Ewing, New Jersey – The College of New Jersey
Greencastle, Indiana – DePauw
Ithaca, New York – Ithaca
Marshall, Texas – East Texas Baptist
Medford, Massachusetts - Tufts
Pella, Iowa – Central (Iowa)
*St. Paul, Minnesota – St. Thomas (Minnesota)
Union, New Jersey - Kean
Virginia Beach, Virginia – Virginia Wesleyan
Whitewater, Wisconsin – Wisconsin-Whitewater
* The regional sites at Bloomington, Ill., and St. Paul, Minn., will be conducted Thursday-Saturday, May 9-11.
— Information courtesy of NCAA.com
