Tennessee softball selected as No. 7 national seed in 2025 NCAA tournament, will face Miami (Ohio)

Tennessee softball was selected as the No. 7 national seed in the NCAA tournament on May 11.

The Lady Vols (40-14) were selected as a top-8 seed for the third straight year, which give them hosting privileges for the NCAA regional and super regional, should they advance. Before the current streak, the last time Tennessee was a top-8 seed was 2017.

Tennessee was a top-8 seed the last two years, securing the highest tournament seeding in program history last season as the No. 3 national seed. This is the Lady Vols’ 22nd NCAA tournament appearance overall and 21st

Tennessee will host Miami (Ohio), Ohio State and North Carolina in a double-elimination regional at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium. The Lady Vols will play Miami (Ohio) (35-24) in the first game of the day Friday (1:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network), and Ohio State (43-12-1) and North Carolina (40-15) will play at 4 p.m. on ESPNU. It will be the 20th consecutive NCAA regional hosted in Knoxville.

The elimination game will be the last game on Saturday. The championship will be on Sunday, with the team coming out of the losers’ bracket having to win twice.

The regional winner will move on to the super regionals the weekend of May 22-25, where they will face the winner of No. 10 seed LSU’s regional. LSU hosts Nebraska, UConn and Southeastern Louisiana. The Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City begins on May 29.

There were nine SEC teams in the top 16 national seeds, and seven of them make up the top 8 seeds. Texas A&M is No. 1, Oklahoma is No. 2, Florida is No. 3, Arkansas is No. 4, Texas is No. 6, South Carolina is No. 8, LSU is No. 10 and Alabama is No. 15. Every SEC team except Missouri, which finished tied for last in the conference, made the field.

Tennessee finished fourth in the SEC at 15-9. UT finished behind Texas and Oklahoma, which won the SEC regular-season championship, but beat both SEC newcomers on the road. The Lady Vols dropped series to Arkansas and Texas A&M and lost their first game of the SEC tournament to the Razorbacks.

Tennessee began the season ranked No. 6 and finished ranked No. 5 in the NFCA poll. The Lady Vols were a top-10 team all season and rose as high as No. 1 in the Softball America and USA Softball polls on April 22. They finished the season ranked No. 10 in RPI.

Karlyn Pickens was named SEC Pitcher of the Year for the second consecutive season, making her one of five pitchers in conference history to win the award in two straight seasons. Pickens was also selected to the All-SEC first team with infielder Taylor Pannell. They were Tennessee’s lone All-SEC selections.