BYU sports: Cougars ready for regional

PROVO — The Brigham Young University softball team went 4-1 to close out its regular season last week — securing them second place in the Mountain West Conference and earning them an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament.

The Cougars (42-18) will play North Carolina on Thursday in the Chapel Hill Regional. This year's trip to the regional marks BYU's fourth-straight tournament appearance.

"It has become an expectation of ours to make the tournament every year," said head coach Gordon Eakin. "We believe we have solid enough kids to retool every year and get back. We thought all year we would make it, and it wasn't a surprise when it was announced this weekend. But this year it was a bonus because we were so young."

The Cougars will open the regional with North Carolina (50-10-1). The other teams participating in the region are Campbell (41-23) and Georgia (43-22).

The Cougars are now working to get their travel arranged quickly.

"It's a little surprising that they are sending us across the country to play, but we are excited to go and play those teams we have never faced and also to be somewhere we have not played before," said Eakin.

The regional requires two losses to be eliminated, with the winner of each regional advancing to a super regional. Coach Eakin knows that the competition is stiff, but they still have some goals they have not accomplished this season. "We are getting a little tired of just making it to the tournament and not winning it," he said.

MEN'S SOCCER: The BYU men's soccer club is currently in Fiji as part of tits annual international trip. The first game was on May 7 against the Ba FC, which is Fiji's most successful soccer team. The Cougars fought hard but came up just short as they lost 1-0.

Their second game was just one day later against Fiji's Under-20 Olympic team's reserves. The Cougars came away with a 2-0 win in that contest. Later that evening, the team enjoyed a feast with the mayor of Ba, and several top officials in the Fijian government and Fiji Soccer attended the dinner.