The University of South Florida softball team earned an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament after winning a second straight American Conference Tournament this past weekend.
The Bulls (42-15) are headed to the regional in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where they’ll open against Washington (36-18) on Friday at 8 p.m. ESPNU will broadcast the game.
The double-elimination bracket includes host Arkansas (42-11) and Fordham (27-26), who meet at 5 p.m. Friday.
USF, which also won the regular-season American title, defeated East Carolina 5-1 in the tournament championship game on Saturday.
Washington leads the all-time series 4-1.
“Washington has pretty good talent, and Arkansas has pretty good talent. I think Fordham is the other team right now, so they're all tough at this time of year, man, everybody can play,” said USF coach Ken Eriksen, who has led the program since 1997.
Eriksen has some familiarity with the Huskies, whose head coach, Heather Tarr, was an assistant on his 2020 U.S. Olympic team that won a silver medal in Japan.
“They're a solid team,” said Eriksen, who has coached the Bulls to 17 NCAA regionals, including seven of the past 10. “They're gonna be very fundamental. They're not dissimilar to us in how they play the game.”
Every four-year class under Coach Ken Eriksen has earned an NCAA berth. Several players are back from last year’s regional appearance, although the coach says the Bulls are not reliant on one or two players.
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“I think what's great about our team is that they're not a team that says, ‘I have to do it,’” Eriksen said. “… It's a lot of trust with each other, and I think that's a big part of it. You win in the locker room, you win in the dugout, you got a great opportunity to win on the ball field.”
The Bulls are led by three-time conference Defensive Player of the Year Kathy Garcia-Soto and Pitcher of the Year Anne Long, who threw a one-hitter in the tournament final.
The matchup is set! pic.twitter.com/NQeKl9Q5xv
— USF Softball (@USFSoftball) May 10, 2026
Long and Garcia-Soto, a senior out of Tampa’s Jefferson High, were joined on the all-tournament team by senior outfielder Olivia Elliott, from Tampa’s Cambridge Christian, junior utility player Alex Wilkes, from Tampa’s Gaither High, and junior infielder Jamia Nelson.
“I think the key for me was just my team, you know. My team makes me great,” said Long, a sophomore from Sanford. “The defense that I have behind me is amazing. Awesome. So, I think it's just been so easy just to trust them.”
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Long and Wilkes made the all-conference first team, while senior outfielder Alexa Galligani was on the second team.
The 64-team NCAA bracket includes 31 automatic qualifiers and 33 at‑large teams, with the 16 regional winners advancing to best-of-three super regionals on May 21-24. Eight survivors head to the College World Series, which begins June 3 in Oklahoma City.
Arkansas is one of 13 Southeastern Conference teams in the field — the most of any Power Four league — along with No. 1 seed Alabama (49-7).
Another is No. 6 seed Florida (48-10), which hosts a regional in Gainesville and opens against Florida A&M (32-20) at 11 a.m. Friday (SEC Network). Texas State (38-20) meets Georgia Tech (30-27) in the later game.
No. 9 seed Florida State, host of the Tallahassee Regional, plays Stetson (36-20) at noon Friday, followed by Central Florida (38-16-1) vs. Jacksonville State (45-14).
