Around 7:30pm Sunday night I texted JJ: “Another trip to Westwood?”

By now you know we’re not strangers to visiting the land of NCAA Championships and home to the (baby?) blue and gold. Just a few months ago we were on campus for the Long Beach State women’s soccer team’s first-round NCAA Tournament loss and now we’re heading back for some more Long Beach State postseason play.

This time it’s the 49ers softball team (34-19, 15-6) making the trip up the 405 to Easton Stadium on the north side of the UCLA campus. There they will face the Pac-10 champion and no. 2 overall seed Bruins (41-9, 16-5) at 3:30pm Friday as the main event of the four-team, double elimination regional.

Joining them is Western Athletic Conference (WAC) regular season and tournament champion, Fresno State (36-18, 15-5) and Mountain West Conference at-large selection, UNLV (31-19, 7-8). These two teams will play at 1pm Friday.

The Bulldogs and Rebels have not faced each other this season but both Long Beach State and the Bruins have played their regional counterparts throughout the season.

Long Beach State enters the tournament as an at-large selection and can take advantage of playing close to home against familiar opponents. The 49ers played each team in consecutive weeks in March starting with an 8-0 mercy win over then top-15 ranked Fresno State at Mayfair Park in the Mayfair Tournament on the first of the month. A week later the 49ers beat (then-no. 3 ranked) UCLA 2-1 in a memorable pitching duel between Brooke Turner and the Bruins’ Donna Kerr. Six days later the 49ers lost 4-2 to UNLV in the San Jose State Tournament.

The Bruins beat UNLV 9-7 in the UNLV-hosted Louisville Slugger Desert Classic in February and worked Fresno State 10-2 the following weekend in the Cathedral City Softball Classic.

This is the 49ers’ 19th trip to the NCAA tournament and most of them came with now-UNLV head coach Pete Manarino at the helm. Manarino coached a very successful 23 years at Long Beach State.  His team does enter the tournament having struggled in conference play. UNLV finished 7-8 in the Mountain West but relished success against Big West teams with a 5-0 record.

If matched up against the Rebels in the regional, the 49ers will be looking for a little payback the same way the Bruins are looking at their match-up against Long Beach State. UCLA enters postseason play as one of the hottest teams in the country. After losing four games in a row to Cal, Arizona State and Arizona, UCLA finished off the season having lost only once in their final 16 games.

This Los Angeles regional group was the last bracket announced during ESPN U’s telecast of the selection show, which might have had some 49er-faithful sweating through the first 20 minutes. But the opportunity of playing close to home against familiar opponents might have been worth the wait. Surely this will be one of the better regional pools in the tournament with contrasting parity between the teams. UCLA and UNLV are some of the better hitting teams in the country both for power and average. Long Beach State and Fresno State have the arms to try and quiet the bats but can surely swing it themselves if it gets into a slugfest.

Long Beach State’s familiarity with each team can definitely be to their advantage. Head Coach Kim Sowder will without a doubt have her team buying into the fact that they can beat any of these teams. Coach Sowder talked numerous times this season about the team’s search for a consistent, confident approach to every game. And with a roster that had eight players start 48-plus games for the Beach, their mental approach should not be in question.

The 49ers have great pitching and great hitting, but the question rather will be, can both aspects show up at the same time? And if not, how will the team react? That is why it is important to keep an eye on how this team comes out in the early innings. This is a team that feeds off their success and can gain confidence and energy with each hit and each inning that passes.

The 49ers will have to find a way to manufacture runs against the Bruins, as they are practically flawless on the field with the second best fielding percentage in the country. Fresno State and UNLV are not in the top 50, so keeping pressure on those teams will be key and coach Sowder has proven she can make the right moves and calls to get her team a win in close games, with a 16-11 record in games determines by two runs or less.

The 49ers’ pitching will be key with Turner (17-11, 2.34 era) and freshman phenom Taylor Petty (15-4, 1.41 era) in the circle. Opponents will be facing two Long Beach State pitchers with contrasting styles; Turner throws consistently in the low 60’s working off her riser while Petty works in the mid-50’s with a craftier style. But both pitchers know how to work both corners of the plate and have complete command of all their pitches. Something to look out for will be the handling of Turner if she does run into trouble. Petty has appeared in relief nine times this season and has showed a fearless mentality as a freshman, so keep an eye out on how Sowder handles her staff this weekend.

 The 49ers have a consistently solid lineup top to bottom. But more so than ever the middle-bottom portion of the lineup must produce. Junior shortstop Ashley Levine has been ripping pitchers lately and if pitcher-turned outfielder Bridgette Pagano and outfielder-turned-infielder Breezy Goad can get on base early and often, the big bats of seniors Danielle Linke (.353, 29 runs, 7 home runs and 26 RBIs) and Jennifer Griffin will do what they do best and bring them in. Also atop the lineup is Ashley Weber who has been the ultimate blue-collar player this season with 26 sacrifice hits, that’s second most in country. Not to mention her .325 average is third on the team behind Linke and Griffin. Griffin is a slick fielding third baseman that is the most feared hitter in this lineup. Her 48 walks this season are top-5 in the country and she leads the team with 35 runs scored, eight home runs, and 48 RBIs and her .329 average is second on the team.

Big West champ Cal Poly won’t be traveling too far either as they head to the Palo Alto regional to take on Nevada at 3pm Friday with Stanford taking on Portland State in the other bracket match up. Cal State Fullerton finished in second place in the Big West and finds themselves traveling to Tempe, Arizona where they are pinned in a very tough regional with 10th overall seed, Arizona State, LSU and San Diego State.