Full 2025 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Eastern Illinois softball makes a return trip to the NCAA Tournament as the 2025 Ohio Valley Conference champions found out their destination on Sunday night during the NCAA Tournament Selection Show.
 
EIU is headed to Austin, Texas to take on the No. 6 national seed Texas Longhorns.  Game time is 3:30 pm on Friday afternoon with the game televised on ESPN+.
 
Joining EIU and Texas in the Austin Regional are Michigan and UCF.
 
The Panthers have played two of the three regional opponents prior to this weekend with a 2-0 record.
 
EIU beat Michigan, 1-0, on March 29, 1986 at the Miami (Ohio) Tournament.  The Panthers have a more recent win over Texas with a 5-1 win over the Longhorns on March 16, 2018 in the final game of the Charleston (SC) Invitational.  EIU and UCF have never met on the softball diamond.
 
EIU enters the NCAA Tournament at 34-20 overall winning both the OVC regular season and tournament titles.   This marks EIU's second-ever NCAA Tournament appearance at the NCAA Division I level with the first coming two years ago (2023) when they played at the Evanston Regional hosted by Northwestern.
 
EIU is the under the direction of first year head coaches Kristi Paulson and Dan Paulson with only two players on this year's roster that played in the 2023 NCAA Tournament – senior Briana Gonzalez and junior Kendall Grover.
 
Austin, Texas Regional
(6) Texas (46-10) vs. Eastern Illinois (34-20)
Michigan (38-19) vs. UCF (33-22-1)