For a second straight year, the Gator softball team will be the #1 overall seed in the 2009 NCAA Softball Tournament. The Gators (55-3) will host Florida A&M (30-30), Lehigh (36-16-1) and Texas A&M (31-19) in Regional action in Gainesville starting on Friday, May 15.

Lehigh and Texas A&M will battle at 3:30 p.m., while the Gators will
face FAMU at 6 p.m. The rest of the weekend’s schedule will be
released later in the week.

Florida is one of nine SEC teams to make the national tournament, the
most of any conference in the nation. Three other conference teams
earned top-16 seeds as No. 4 Alabama and No. 13 Tennessee will host and
No. 6 Georgia will travel to Chapel Hill, N.C. Arkansas, Auburn,
Kentucky and Mississippi State also made the field of 64.

The winner of the Gainesville Regional will face the winner of the
Tallahassee Regional. Florida State earned the 16th seed and will host
California, Mississippi State and Oklahoma State.

The Gators earned their fifth consecutive top-16 seed. Aside from the
No. 1 seed last year, they earned the No. 13 seed in 2005 and 2007 and
the No. 16 seed in 2006. It is the 10th NCAA Tournament appearance for
UF in the 13-year history of the program, the seventh consecutive and
sixth time the Gators will host.