Arizona softball team lands No. 11 overall seed for NCAA Tournament

The NCAA Softball Selection Committee decided to issue a challenge to the Arizona Wildcats.

If UA (36-13, 13-10) is to make the Women’s College World Series, they’ll most likely have to do the thing they’ve struggled at all season: Win a series against a ranked opponent on the road.

Courtesy of being selected No. 11, Arizona hosts a regional with UMBC, Villanova, and Ole Miss, but should it advance, will likely have to win two of three at No. 6 Arkansas (40-9, 19-5).

The Razorbacks have to make it through Manhattan, South Dakota State and Stanford. But even as the Pac-12 had six teams make the tournament, the conference had a disappointing performance on Selection Sunday, with just one team among the top eight: overall No. 2 seed UCLA.

“I know our conference, and I know it is much better than what was shown today,” Arizona coach Mike Candrea said. “It irritates me. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Candrea pointed out the television advantage of the Southeastern Conference, which placed five teams among the top eight, having so many games on ESPN and the SEC Network. Most Pac-12 softball games are on the Pac-12 Network. Candrea felt that contributed to Washington, ranked No. 5 last week, dropping to the No. 16 seed, and Oregon, which was No. 12, not even cracking the top 16.

“Throughout the years now, the Pac-12 Network hasn’t helped our case,” he said. “We need to look at what we need to do to get our people in front of the audience it needs to be in front of. That’s the next step in our conference, to fix what we have. It’s broken right now.”

The eight-time national champion coach urged for change.

“When I turn on the SEC Network, they’ve got a show that looks like ESPN, every highlight with baseball and softball. Obviously, that’s going to catch eyes,” Candrea said.

“We have to do much more. Unfortunately, you turn on the Pac-12 network now, and all you see is a bunch of replays of games that have already been done. It’s pretty prehistoric right now and we need to do something to fix it.”

As for the present, it’s not unheard of for a lower-ranked team to stun their higher-ranked foe in a super regional. Arizona suffered that fate in 2017, losing to No. 17 Baylor as the No. 5 overall seed. By now, the Wildcats have accumulated plenty of practice in taking on tough opponents at their place, traveling to No. 10 Florida State, No. 15 Arizona State, No. 16 Washington and Oregon this year.

Yet, the closest Arizona came to a series win was a 2-2 split against the Ducks. Against the Seminoles and Sun Devils, Arizona mustered one victory, and the Wildcats came up empty in two games versus Washington, which were lost by a combined three runs.

Perhaps, that was the story of the selection show, missed opportunities. All 13 of Arizona’s losses came against ranked foes, with nine of them coming by two or fewer runs.

“I don’t think we can dwell on the past,” said Arizona's Janelle Meono, who was named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Sunday. “It happened, and we can only control what we can control right now.”

Arizona had won 30 straight games in Tucson going into the UCLA series, the second-longest such streak in program history. Of those, 18 were ended by invoking the mercy rule – when a team leads by at least eight runs after five innings. However, the Wildcats have struggled to replicate that kind of offensive power on the road, where they managed to go 11-10, albeit against mostly ranked opponents.