By Drew Casey
The Fordham softball team will begin their quest for an NCAA Championship in Harrisonburg, Virginia, it was announced late Sunday night.
Winners of three straight Atlantic 10 titles, the team seeded third in the regional will face two seeded North Carolina State on Friday. James Madison, the top seed in the regional and 15th overall seed, will tangle with Binghamton in Friday’s other game in the double elimination tournament. Games continue on Saturday and Sunday at the public university located two hours southwest of Washington DC.
The Rams, 4-8 all-time in the NCAA Tournament and 1-4 in the last two seasons, will travel less than 400 miles for the first time since appearing in the 2011 Penn State regional in State College, Pennsylvania.
The squad’s first opponent, NC State, is currently 35-20 and is coming off a 11-4 loss to Florida State in the ACC semifinals. Fordham and NC State met earlier in the season with the Rams falling to the Wolfpack 5-0 in Raleigh, North Carolina. NC State hit four home runs in the contest, but was outhit by Fordham 6-5 in the seven-inning affair.
Binghamton, the fourth seeded team in the regional, currently sits at 24-19 after winning the America East Championship. The Rams battled the Bearcats earlier this season as well, also in Raleigh, North Carolina, and bested them 6-4. Sophomore third baseman Lindsay Mayer’s three-run homer in the sixth, part of a four run inning, proved to be the difference as the team won their tenth game of the season.
James Madison, hosting a regional for the first time in program history, is coming off a defeat at the hands of Hofstra in the Colonial Athletic Association Softball Championship. The Dukes, 47-8, enter the tournament after rolling through the CAA regular season at a perfect 19-0. The team is led by freshman pitcher Megan Good, who is 28-2 with a 1.00 ERA.
The winner of the Harrisonburg regional will face the winner of the Eugene, Oregon regional the following weekend in a best of three game super-regional series. Oregon is the second overall seed in the tournament.
