Black Bears best in America East, will play Georgia in NCAA Regional

A day after winning the America East Championship, the University of Maine softball team (28-19) was selected to play in the NCAA Regional in Athens, Georgia.

UMaine will face the 16th-seeded host Georgia Bulldogs (40-17) at 3:30 p.m. Friday, May 20. The game will be shown live on ESPN3. Oklahoma State (29-24) and Northwestern (26-26) also are in the double-elimination bracket and will play at 1 p.m.

This marks Maine’s third appearance in the NCAA tournament, and its first trip since 2004.

NCAA Regionals will be held May 20–22 at 16 campus sites. At each site, a four-team, double-elimination tournament will be played. The 16 winning teams advance to the Super Regionals that begin May 27. The Women’s College World Series commences June 2 in Oklahoma City.

The NCAA selected the 64-team field from 295 NCAA Division I institutions that sponsor softball; 32 teams received an automatic qualification and the remaining best 32 squads were selected on an at-large basis.

Two-time defending national champion University of Florida is the overall No. 1 seed.

The Black Bears earned their way to the NCAA Regional by trouncing top-seeded Albany 14-1 on Saturday in Binghamton to win the America East Championship.

UMaine’s Erin Bogdanovich, the AE Pitcher of Year, also was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. In five innings in the title game, she yielded one run while fanning two and allowing four hits.

The Black Bears pounded a league record 18 hits in the win; AE Player of the Year Janelle Bouchard led Maine’s attack, going 3-for-4 with a home run and four RBIs. Erika Leonard drove in four runs on two hits, including a double, and Felicia Lennon contributed three hits and two RBIs.

Bogdanovich, Bouchard, Leonard and Lennon all were named to the America East All-Tournament team.

In 2004, UMaine played in the Lincoln, Nebraska Regional, losing to California 4-0 and Iowa 2-0.

In 1994, UMaine won the North Atlantic Conference tournament and twice defeated Robert Morris 2-1 in a play-in round before advancing to the Northridge, California Regional. There, the Black Bears lost 8-0 to host California State University and 10-0 to Washington.