PROVO -- The BYU women's softball team (36-17), despite winning a school-record 36 games this season, did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament of 64 teams. The tournament was 48 teams, but expanded to 64 teams for the first time ever, Sunday.
Mountain West Conference Tournament Champions Colorado State received an automatic bid along with MWC regular season champion San Diego State, who received an at-large bid after not receiving a bid last season as the regular season champs.
Despite having the 10th best batting average in the country at .305 and the ninth best scoring average at 5.81 runs per game, BYU did not receive the bid it hoped for.
"We're disappointed that we didn't receive a bid but we are not going to dwell on it and start tomorrow to prepare for next year," head coach Gordon Eakin said. "We are only losing three seniors and had one of our best recruiting years ever."
The Cougars will lose only one position players in Brooke Cadiente, the first four-year player in the four-year history of the program. On the mound, BYU will lost seniors Cynthia Fallowfield and Mandy Flint.
The Cougars return one of the top seniors in the nation in two-time All-American Oli Keohohou. She is currently 14th in the country with a .445 batting average, second in the nation with 20 home runs (0.40 per game) and 24th in the nation with .094 RBI per game. BYU looks for even more success after the great year that young players like Lauren Watson, Neta Lei, and Brooke Boyce had this season.