Making the NCAA Tournament for the fifth season in a row, Virginia Tech softball will head to Los Angeles this weekend to begin its run to OKC.
The Hokies (39-12-1, 18-6 ACC), who are the No. 2 seed in the Los Angeles Regional, will face third-seeded San Diego State (31-18, 15-7 Mountain West) on Friday at 6 p.m. ET on ESPNU at Easton Stadium.
No. 6 overall UCLA (37-10, 17-4 Pac-12) will play host to fourth-seeded Grand Canyon (48-11, 23-3 WAC) Friday following the Virginia Tech-San Diego State game approximately at 8:30 p.m. on ESPN+.
Regionals are double elimination, with the lone team advancing having to win a minimum of three games to get to Super Regionals. The winner of the Los Angeles Regional will advance to the NCAA Super Regional round against the winner of the Athens Regional, featuring No. 11 overall Georgia, Charlotte, Liberty and UNCW.
In what should be an exciting regional in The Golden State, get to know more about each team ahead of this weekend by viewing below.
UCLA
The Bruins are coming off a Pac-12 Tournament championship and are currently on an eight-game winning streak. UCLA is led by back-to-back Pac-12 Player of the Year Maya Brady and Pac-12 Tournament MVP Sharlize Palacios. Head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez is in her 18th season in Westwood and has led the Bruins to two national championships (2010, 2019).
SAN DIEGO STATE
The Mountain West champions, San Diego State has four Power Five wins, defeating Illinois, Nebraska, then-No. 11 Missouri and then-No. 25 Kentucky. The Aztecs are led by Mountain West Co-Player of the Year Mac Barbara and also feature four Aztecs who earned All-Mountain West. Head coach Stacey Nuveman Deniz, who was the Mountain West Coach of the Year, is in her third season.
GRAND CANYON
Winning its third straight WAC Tournament title, Grand Canyon will once again head to UCLA for a regional, marking its third straight trip to Westwood. The Lopes boast the WAC Player of the Year (Ashley Trierweiler) and WAC Pitcher of the Year (Hailey Hudson). Head coach Shanon Hays is in his third season and has a diverse background, previously coaching men's basketball at the college level before making the transition to softball. Tech faced Grand Canyon earlier this year and fell 11-2 (6 innings) in Phoenix.