NCAA Bracket

Arizona will play its NCAA Softball Championships Super Regionals games in Palo Alto, Calif., starting Thursday, May 19. On the line for UA is a potential 21st trip to the Women's College World Series.

The Cats and Cardinal square off at 6:30 p.m. (PDT/MST) in a game to be televised on ESPN2. The second game in the best-of-three series is slated for 5:30 p.m. Friday, with a potential Game 3 scheduled at 8 p.m. if the series goes to three games. Game 2 will be shown on ESPN with Game 3 on ESPN2 if necessary.

The Pacific-10 Conference has all six of its teams that made the NCAAs in Super Regional action, giving it 38 percent of the remaining field and host teams in UCLA, Stanford and Arizona State.

UA (44-14) emerged unbeaten in its Regional action at Louisville, Ky., last weekend beating Tennessee-Martin, host Louisville and Purdue to advance to the round of 16 for the 22nd time (Super Regionals began in 2005 when the NCAA switched from eight-team 1st-2nd rounds play at eight sites to 16 four-team initial rounds action).

Winners of the eight Super Regionals will meet in Oklahoma City for the Women's College World Series May 28 to June 3.

The NCAA Softball Committee has scheduled Super Regional play to begin on three different days at the eight sites. Arizona-Stanford and Ohio State at Georgia begin on Thursday; Baylor at Michigan, North Dakota State at Arizona State, and Jacksonville State at Alabama begin on Friday; and Missouri at UCLA, Washington at Georgia Tech and California at Florida begin on Saturday.

The Thursday-Friday winners would have two extra days of rest and travel time before WCWS play begins, notably the Palo Alto winner against the Gainseville, Fla., winner.

Stanford is the designated home team in the Thursday game, Arizona is home team in Game 2 and a coin flip determines the home team if the series moves to three games.

The Cardinal won the regular season series against the Cats, picking up two victories in Palo Alto three weekends ago. Arizona's only win was a 12-4 run-ruling in Tucson.