Virginia Tech softball heads West for the NCAA Tournament at UCLA

After starting the season strong, the Virginia Tech softball team hit some bumps in the road in the ACC after a 9-0 start. The Hokies were able to right the ship and entered the ACC Tournament last week with an opportunity to make a case to try and steal a Top 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament and host the first round this upcoming weekend.

Virginia Tech dropped two out of three at Syracuse two weeks ago but had a chance for redemption in the ACC Tournament at Duke, but they suffered a 6-2 loss to Georgia Tech Thursday night in the quarterfinals. That loss assured that the 39-12-1 Hokies would likely end up on the road for the first weekend of the tournament and that was the case.

Virginia Tech is in the Los Angeles Regional

Virginia Tech was seeded in the Los Angeles Regional that will be hosted by No. 6 overall seed UCLA. The Hokies will open with San Diego State (31-18) Friday night at 6 p.m. on ESPNU. UCLA will follow against Grand Canyon in the double-elimination regional. This certainly a tough draw Pete D'Amour's tea.

Offensively, the Hokies were shut down by the Yellow Jackets in the ACC Tournament after sweeping them at home during the regular season and they are going to need to come up big this weekend if they want to get to a Super Regional the following weekend.

Cori McMillan led the Hokies with 20 home runs and Michelle Chatfield had 19 for a team that combined to hit 113 during the season while carrying a .342 team batting average into the NCAA Tournament.

We will break down the regional more in-depth as the week goes along as Virginia Tech will have a tough road ahead of them, but it's the NCAA Tournament and every team that is in is good playing for the same goal, to get to Oklahoma for the World Series to have a chance to win it all.