Oregon softball to host Eugene Regional as No. 16 overall seed in NCAA Tournament

Despite being upset in their opening game of the Big Ten Softball Tournament, the Oregon Ducks will host a Regional in the NCAA Tournament for the first time under head coach Melyssa Lombardi.

The tournament selection committee gave the Ducks the 16th overall seed, making Oregon the final team selected to host a regional. The Stanford Cardinal, Binghamton Bearcats, and Weber State Wildcats will join the Ducks in the Eugene Regional.

This will mark the first time the NCAA Tournament will come to Eugene since 2018 and the eighth time in program history after the Ducks hosted regionals every year from 2012 to 2018. Oregon will be one of eight Big Ten teams in this season's tournament, the third-most of any conference, alongside UCLA (who will host its own regional as the No. 9 overall seed), Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, and Washington.

The regional will be a double-elimination tournament between the four teams from Friday to Saturday. Oregon will take on No. 4 Weber State as the top seed to kick things off, while No. 2 Stanford will face No. 3 Binghamton. The winners of the two games will then play each other, while the others will be sent to a losers' bracket, where a second defeat will eliminate them from the tournament.

Stanford, the top two-seed in the tournament, finished third this year in their first season in the ACC but will give the Ducks a chance to face a familiar foe they played many times as members of the Pac-12.

Meanwhile, Binghamton enters the tournament as the American East Conference champions, and Weber State as winners of the Big Sky. The Bearcats will have a chance to match up with the Ducks for the first time in program history, while the Wildcats hold a 0-7 record against Oregon all-time, losing 9-1 at the Littlewood Classic back in February.

Although this will be Oregon's first time hosting under Lombardi, this is her fifth-straight season leading the Ducks to a tournament appearance. Oregon was eliminated in the Regionals in 2021, 2022, and 2024, but advanced to the Super Regionals before they were knocked out in 2023.

"We have our process pretty dialed," senior outfielder Kai Luschar said about how the approach changes by being at home for this year's postseason. "We're gonna stick with our exact same process that we go through and just play free."

If the Ducks are to advance, they will face the winner of the top-overall seed Texas A&M's regional the following weekend in the Super Regionals.