Cajuns headed to Austin for softball regionals

Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun softball team is headed to Austin, Texas for the NCAA Regionals.

The Longhorns received the #3 national seed and will host Louisiana, Houston and Texas State beginning Friday in Austin.

The Cajuns (45-9) are paired with Houston in the first round on Friday and that could set up an interesting pitching matchup.

Should coach Kyla Holas choose, we could see a matchup of former teammates with Louisiana's Ashley Brignac (30-5) facing Houston's Donna Bourgeois. The two teams were scheduled to play this season, but that game was cancelled when Bourgeois transferred.

But Houston also has Amanda Crabtree (18-8) available and could choose to bypass Bourgeois, who was named Conference USA Newcomer of the Year. Bourgeois was 16.6 with a 1.68 ERA.

While that matchup will get a lot of buzz at the two schools, there's no question that the Longhorns are the team to beat.

Here are the matchups in the sixteen regionals. National seeds are in parenthesis. All seeded teams are hosting unless otherwise noted:

(1) Arizona State/North Dakota State San Diego State/Long Beach State

(16) Texas A&M/Sacred Heart LSU/Syracuse

(9) Oklahoma/Iona Missouri State/Tulsa

(8) Arizona/Harvard Texas Tech/New Mexico State

(5) Missouri/Illinois State DePaul/Indiana

(12) Washington/Portland State Auburn/BYU

(4) Florida/Bethune Cookman UCLA/Jacksonville

(13) Oregon/Albany Fordham/Penn State (host)

(3) Texas/Texas State Houston/Louisiana

(14) Tennessee/Liberty Oklahoma State/Georgia Tech