It’s a good thing that Baylor softball coach Glenn Moore likes cajun food because he’s going to get another chance to experience the local fare this weekend.
The Bears (32-20) will begin the NCAA Tournament Friday at 7 p.m. against Ole Miss (31-25) in the first game of the Lafayette Regional, the 16th time Baylor has made the postseason tournament and its 11th appearance in the last 13 seasons.
“Ole Miss is a very good team, and that will be who we’re gonna have to focus on with all our resources to even advance after the first round, because I think it’s going to be a very, very difficult task,” Moore said.
Host Louisiana (42-17) and Princeton (29-16) will face off Friday at 4:30 p.m. in the first game of the double-elimination regional.
Baylor played at Louisiana earlier this season at Yvette Girouard Field at Lamson Park in Lafayette, winning two of three games against the Ragin’ Cajuns.
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“Having been down there, we’re not going to be surprised by anything,” Moore said. “All year we’ve had top-five strength of schedule, and most of the time has been number one because we chose to put our kids through the fire to be prepared for this moment.
“It’ll just be whether we can match up with them, go toe-to-toe, and find a way to beat them.”
Louisiana won the regular-season Sun Belt Conference Championship for the fifth straight season, while Princeton made the postseason after securing the Ivy League Conference’s automatic bid.
Ole Miss, the team that knocked Baylor out of the NCAA Tournament last season, earned an at-large bid as all 13 SEC schools got into the postseason tournament.
“If you’re a competitor, you love that they sent us to somebody that we’ve played before just to make it more exciting,” senior Emily Hott said. “The drama will be so good. I’m so excited to play against them, and they’re a good team.”
The Rebels are one of the hottest teams in the country, earning back-to-back series wins over Auburn and No. 8 Arkansas and taking the opening game of the SEC Tournament against No. 25 Kentucky.
They have seven wins against teams in the RPI Top 25 and 10 against teams in the top 50 teams, including the highest-ranked series win in program history over No. 2 LSU.
“Opening up with Ole Miss didn’t work out really well for us last year, so we have another shot at them,” Moore said. “They’re playing really well right now, and we’re going to have to be really good to come out of that regional.”
Baylor is 4-3 in the all-time series against Ole Miss.
The Bears have advanced to the Super Regional round six times, and are 33-14 all-time in the first round.
Five Big 12 schools received bids. Texas earned the No. 1 overall seed, Oklahoma will be the No. 2 overall seed and Oklahoma State received the No. 5 seed. UCF and Baylor received at-large bids.
Texas Tech and BYU were in the next four teams out, according to Sunday’s selection show.
“I feel like our conference is underrepresented once again,” Moore said. “When (the SEC) gets everybody in, a conference with 1-2 in the RPI should have more than five teams. I’m extremely disappointed and feel bad for those guys.”
The Bears started this season strong, sweeping their way through the stacked Mary Nutter Classic Tournament in Palm Springs to start the year and played well despite two losses against highly-ranked Oklahoma State in the first series of Big 12 play.
But some adversity bit early and hard.
Senior Dari Orme pitched less than nine innings before getting shut down with a shoulder injury, starting infielder Amber Toven tore her ACL after just seven games and outfielder McKenzie Wilson was arrested after playing in 11 games.
Baylor won just five of its first 13 conference games and was swept three times in that span. By the time the middle of April rolled around, at times 11 of 24 players were sidelined for one reason or another.
The Bears finished the year by sweeping three straight series against Big 12 foes, won nine of their final 10 regular-season games and won a game at the Big 12 Tournament for the first time since 2018.
In total, Baylor has five wins against teams that are hosting regionals this weekend.
“We’ve rode on those,” junior Aliyah Binford said. “We’ve ridden on everything that we’ve done this year. Just knowing that we can compete with the top teams, the best of the best, that’s all that really matters.”