McNeese Softball prepares for NCAA Regionals in Washington

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - The McNeese Cowgirls are back in the NCAA Tournament field of 64 for the third straight season in a row, and this year they have a new challenge as they will travel out to Seattle, Washington for the regional round of the tournament.

In their regional, they will first take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers, a team that finished (37-17) and went to the semifinals of the Big 10 Tournament this past week.

“There’s great tradition at Minnesota, and to me, they are a powerhouse, but look when you get to this level of a tournament everybody’s a good softball team, so it is about seeing how your team could best match up with them,” said head coach of the Cowgirls James Landreneau. “We’ll watch some video on them but at the end of the day it’s going to come down to the same things we talk about all the time, you have to forget about the name on the jersey, and you need to focus on doing your best and playing clean softball.”

The other major team in their regional is the hosting Washington Huskies. Washington finished the season (38-12), and earned the number seven overall seed in the entire tournament. The Cowgirls have some confidence with that match-up though as just a couple of months ago in mid-February, McNeese beat them 3-2 at Cowgirl Diamond. That win as Coach Landreneau put it, has given his team plenty of belief going into the NCAA tournament this year.

“We get to play somewhere we haven’t played before and I think the advantage is both ways, right, they’ve seen us too so we’ve both seen each other and I think just the mental side of knowing that your opponent got to prepare for you makes it a unique challenge,” said Landreneau. “We know they’re a great team, they’ve gotten a lot better throughout the year, they’ve gotten better and better, so anytime you go to regional, you’re going to be playing great softball teams.”

The Cowgirls are set to take on Minnesota this Friday at 5:30 PM, and the game will be televised on ESPN+.

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