We are in the thick of the 2026 NCAA softball playoffs, let’s go over the top team performances from the Regional Round
First, Alabama. Alabama went 3-0 in the regional and finished with a run differential of 20-0. Led by three different performances from their 3 top pitchers in Kaitlyn Pallozzi, Jocelyn Briski, and Vic Moten. Alabama averaged almost 7 runs per game on offense and averaged a shutout on defense. Great performance, and each of Alabama’s 3 top pitchers shared the load and were all equally impressive.
Second, Oklahoma. Oklahoma also swept their regional and finished with a 28-1 run differential. Oklahoma’s bats averaging over 9 runs per game, led by Kendall Wells who hit another home run. Oklahoma gave their top pitcher about one-third of the total innings—Audrey Lowrey pitched 6 of the team’s 17 in the regional after 2 run rule games. The Sooners benefit from a lot of pitching depth, and appear to be saving Lowry for what they expect to be a long playoff run.
Third was Texas, who also went 3-0 in their regional and put up a 25-1 run differential. Unlike Alabama and Oklahoma who spread the innings around to their pitching staff, Texas pitched Kavan for 12 of its 18 innings. Texas will live and die this year with Teagan Kavan’s arm and appear ready to give her the lion share of Texas’s remaining playoff innings again this year. This strategy worked last year, and she looks just as good in 2026. During the regional she struck out 13 and only allowed 4 hits and zero runs.
Rounding out the most impressive performances of the Regional were Arkansas who had a 27-3 run differential and Florida who had a 25-2 run differential.
We are now on to the super regional where the 8 pairs of the 16 regional winners will face off in a 3 game series to see who goes to the WCWS. Keep those eyeballs on your screens, it’s going to be a great weekend.
