DIII Softball tournament selected

INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA Division III Softball Committee has announced the 62 teams that will compete in the Division III Softball Championship.

The championship will use a new format this year that includes a super regional round of competition. The regional rounds will be held May 9-11. Four teams will compete at 14 regional sites and three teams will compete at two regional sites. The team advancing from each regional will compete in the super regional round May 16 and 17. The finals, hosted by Texas-Tyler, will be held May 22-27 at Suddenlink Field in Tyler, Texas. All rounds will use a double-elimination format.

Forty-two conferences received automatic qualification (Pool A). One institution was selected from Pool B, which includes independent institutions and institutions from conferences that do not meet the automatic qualification criteria. The 19 remaining teams were selected on an at-large basis from automatic qualifying conferences and the remaining institutions in Pool B.

Printable Brackets: Regionals Final Site

The conferences and teams that received automatic qualification were:

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference - Penn State-Altoona
American Southwest Conference - Texas-Tyler
Capital Athletic Conference - Christopher Newport
Centennial Conference - Haverford
City University of New York Athletic Conference - Staten Island
College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin - Illinois Wesleyan
Colonial States Athletic Conference - Marywood
Commonwealth Coast Conference - Endicott
Commonwealth Conference - Lebanon Valley
Empire 8 - Ithaca
Freedom Conference - Manhattanville
Great Northeast Athletic Conference - St. Joseph's (Maine)
Great South Athletic Conference - Agnes Scott
Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference - Anderson (Ind.)
Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Luther
Landmark Conference - Catholic
Liberty League - Rochester
Little East Conference - Keene State
Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference - Bridgewater State
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association - Trine
Midwest Conference - Lake Forest
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - St. Thomas (Minn.)
New England Collegiate Conference - Lesley
New England Small College Athletic Conference - Tufts
New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference - Wellesley
New Jersey Athletic Conference  - Rowan
North Atlantic Conference - Husson
North Coast Athletic Conference - DePauw
North Eastern Athletic Conference - Penn State-Berks
Northern Athletics Conference - Benedictine (Ill.)
Northwest Conference - Linfield
Ohio Athletic Conference - Muskingum
Old Dominion Athletic Conference - Virginia Wesleyan
Presidents' Athletic Conference - Washington & Jefferson
Skyline Conference - Farmingdale State
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Claremont M-S
Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference - Texas Lutheran
St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Fontbonne
State University of New York Athletic Conference - SUNY Oneonta
Upper Midwest Athletic Conference - St. Scholastica
USA South Athletic Conference - Piedmont
Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Wisconsin-Whitewater

The institution selected from Pool B was:

Emory

The 19 institutions selected from Pool C were:

Alfred
Augustana (Ill.)
Central (Iowa)
Chicago
Coe
East Texas Baptist
Kean
Lynchburg
Messiah
Montclair State
North Central (Ill.)
Redlands
Salisbury
Thomas More
Washington (Mo.)
Western Connecticut State
Wheaton (Mass.)
William Patterson
Williams

REGIONAL SITES (16):

Angola, Ind. - Trine, host
Atlanta, Ga. - Emory, host
Bloomington, Ill. - Illinois Wesleyan, host
Cedar Rapids, Iowa - Coe, host
Chicago, Ill. - Chicago, host
Ithaca, N.Y. - Ithaca, host
Montclair, N.J. - Montclair State, host
Norfolk, Va. - Virginia Wesleyan
Pella, Iowa - Central (Iowa), host
Redlands, Calif. - Redlands, host
Rochester, N.Y. - Rochester, host
Salisbury, Md. - Salisbury, host
Union, N.J. - Kean, host
Tyler, Texas - Texas-Tyler, host 
Wellesley, Mass. - Wellesley, host
Williamstown, Mass. - Williams, host

In 2013, Tufts defeated Cortland State 6-5 to win its first NCAA softball championship. Tufts finished the season with a 46-3 record.