May 16, 2004

NCAA Tournament Notes in PDF Format
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NCAA Regional Bracket (at Arizona)
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EVANSTON, Ill. -- For the second consecutive year, Northwestern is headed to the NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats earned the No. 3 seed to the eight-team Arizona regional and will open the double-elimination tournament at 11 a.m. CDT Thursday versus No. 6 UC Santa Barbara.

The Arizona regional is comprised of: No. 1 Arizona (53-4), No. 2 Oklahoma (39-19-1), No. 3 Northwestern (32-18), No. 4 South Carolina (27-22), No. 5 Louisiana-Lafayette (55-6), No. 6 UC Santa Barbara (32-29), No. 7 Temple (29-16) and No. 8 Centenary (35-28). The winner of the regional will advance to the Women's College World Series May 26-31 in Oklahoma City, Okla.

The bid is the second in a row for Northwestern, which has now made the NCAA Tourney in two of head coach Kate Drohan's three seasons at the helm.

"We are excited to receive an at-large bid for the second consecutive year," Drohan said. "We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. We just need to focus on playing our game."

The Wildcats qualified for the seventh time in the program's history. In 1984, Northwestern finished third in the Women's College World Series -- the highest a Big Ten team has ever finished in the NCAA Championship.

Five other Big Ten schools (Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State) qualified for the tourney. The SEC led all conferences with eight bids while the Pac-10 received seven and the Big Ten was third with six.

Northwestern's schedule this season featured 26 games against opponents in the 64-team field.