NCAA WOMEN’S ROUNDUP

The road to the women’s College World Series for Cal State Northridge and Long Beach State--the only Southern California softball teams to earn NCAA Division I regional playoff berths--goes through Fresno and Seattle.

Northridge (37-17), the Big West Conference champion, is seeded No. 2 in Regional No. 7 at Fresno State and will play California (34-25) in the first game of a four-team, double-elimination tournament, which begins Friday. In the same regional, top-seeded Fresno State (45-10) will play Minnesota (45-19) in the first round.

Long Beach State (38-18), which finished third in the Big West, will travel to Seattle to compete in Regional No. 4, which features fourth-ranked Washington (46-11). In first-round games, third-seeded Long Beach State will play Louisiana State (53-12) and Washington will meet Northwestern (40-15).

UCLA, banned from the 1998 postseason for exceeding the NCAA scholarship limit in 1995, will miss the playoffs for the first time in the program’s history.

Each of the eight regional winners advance to the World Series in Oklahoma City, Okla., on May 21-25.