Kingsville - Less than a week removed from its historic run to the Lone Star Conference Tournament Championship game, the Texas A&M-Kingsville softball team is headed back to Canyon for a rematch with its Championship-game foe, the No.16 Angelo St. Rambelles, at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA South Central Regional Tournament.

The bracket pits TAMUK with three other teams, ASU, No.6 West Texas A&M, and Colorado State-Pueblo, in a three-day, double-elimination tournament with a berth to the Super Regional on the line. 

A complete weekend bracket schedule.

Scouting the Competition: The No.16 Angelo St. Rambelles

Thursday will mark the sixth time that Kingsville and Angelo St. have faced off this season, with the two squads splitting their regular-season matchups (ASU 2-0 at home, TAMUK 2-0 at home). When they met less than a week ago in the LSC Tournament Championship, the Rambelles were able to withstand a late comeback bid from the Javelinas and hold on for a 5-2 win.

While the team also boasts an impressive offense, its defense has been perhaps the very best in the Lone Star. The pitching staff's 2.73 team ERA is the top of the LSC, as are its 10 shutouts this season. That was not a problem for the Javelinas when the two teams faced off in Kingsville, with TAMUK scoring 13 runs on the Rambelles across the doubleheader.

Scouting the Competition: The No.6 West Texas A&M Lady Buffs

As with their first-round matchup, the Javelinas squared off with the Lady Buffs less than one week ago, when the two squads met in the LSC Tournament Semifinals, a game that Kingsville won, 4-0, to earn a berth to its first LSC Tournament Championship game since 2019. 

WT brings perhaps the very best offense in the nation into the weekend. The Regionals' host also served as the host for the Lone Star Conference Tournament last weekend, where it had an uncharacteristically weak offensive performance. The Javelinas blanked the Lady Buffs, shutting out WT for just the second time this year.

Scouting the Competition: The Colorado State - Pueblo ThunderWolves

Another familiar opponent for TAMUK, the ThunderWolves faced off with the Javelinas twice already this season, with both matchups coming in early February's Southern Colorado Crossover tournament. Kingsville played CSU-P once each on back-to-back days, losing the first game, 5-4, in eight innings, before coming back late the following day to win, 5-4.

Like Kingsville's other foes in the Regional, the ThunderWolves have a solid offense but an excellent defense. Pueblo's 2.46 team ERA as well as its .240 team opposing batting average lead the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. 

Javelina Quick Hitters:

• The Javelinas made a historic run through the Lone Star Conference Tournament last weekend, using upset wins over No.17 Oklahoma Chrsitian and No.4 West Texas A&M to reach the tournament's Championship game for the first time since 2019
• Kingsville is back in the NCAA Tournament! Monday's selection show placed the team in the No.6 seed in the South Central Region, setting it up in a Regional bracket with No.6 WT, No.16 ASU, and CSU-P with a berth to the Super Regional on the line
• Head Coach Orlando Salinas, who is in his third full season as Kingsville's skipper, made history earlier this season, becoming the fourth Head Coach in program history to reach 100 wins
• Earlier in LSC play, freshman INF Ella Srubar posted a career DH against Sul Ross St., in which she hit three home runs, going 4-for-5 with 6 RBIs and a pair of walks, helping her earn the LSC's Freshman of the Week award - she is the first Javelina in program history to receive the award
• Senior RHP Andrea Martinez has stepped into a starting role for Kingsville and has been excellent, striking out 127 batters, the sixth-most in the LSC
• Earlier in the LSC season, Martinez had perhaps the best stretch of her career: she threw a complete-game win in game one, before entering game two as a relief pitcher and picking up a save… two weekends in a row.
• She is one of two pitchers in the LSC to post a CG win and a save in the same DH, and the only one to have done it three times - She earned an LSC Pitcher of the Week award for one such performance, the first of her career
• In the midst of its historic winning streak, TAMUK upset No.10 Angelo St. with a sweep at home (5-3, 8-2), the team's first sweep of a top-10-ranked opponent since 2022 - the the win streak reached 14 games, all of them in conference play - tied for the fifth-longest in program history
• Kingsville has been posting incredible offensive output this season, including a DH sweep of UT-Dallas in which it put up 30 total runs (9, 21) - marking the second time already this year that the team has scored 26-plus runs in one doubleheader
• The 21-run performance in game two of that series set multiple records: the most runs scored in a single since 2005, and the first time in school history that a team has scored 20-plus runs in a single game twice in the same season
• Early in LSC play, the team came up with an upset win over No.13 Oklahoma Christian, the first win over a ranked opponent in LSC play for the Javelinas since 2024
• Against Cameron and Oklahoma Christian, junior first baseman Dakota Martinez had one of the best hitting weekends a Javelina has had in recent memory. She went 9-for-15 with six extra base hits and seven RBI - she hit for the cycle against Cameron, the first time a Javelina has accomplished such a feat since 2023
• For that stellar weekend, which saw D. Martinez hit post a .647 on-base percentage and slug 1.333, earned her the Lone Star Conference's Hitter of the Week award, the first of her career and second won by a Hog this season
• Not long after, she won the second LSC Hitter of the Week award of her career, when she went 3-5 with a homer and a walk in a doubleheader sweep of No.10 Angelo St., becoming the first Javelina ever to win two LSC HotW awards in the same season
• At the end of the regular season, Martinez was selected to the LSC's All-Conference First Team - the first postseason award earned by Martinez in her career
• Early in the season, sophomore outfielder Lainee Ballin had a stellar weekend at the Southern Colorado Crossover, hitting .588 with three home runs, keying Kingsville to the first five of nine straight wins and earning the Lone Star Conference's Hitter of the Week award
• Two of TAMUK's freshmen, OF Kennia Chong and 2B Victoria Vargas, are having excellent starts to their collegiate careers - each earned spots on both the LSC's All-Conference Freshman team, and its All-Conference Second Team