Janelle Lindvall

The Oregon Ducks will host a regional in the first round of the 2017 NCAA softball tournament.

(Chris Pietsch/AP/Register-Guard, 2016)

The Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers each are headed to the 2017 NCAA softball tournament, with the Ducks hosting a first-round regional for a sixth consecutive year.

After a second-place finish in the Pac-12 the Ducks (47-6) earned a No. 3 national seed and will host Illinois-Chicago, Wisconsin and Missouri in a regional beginning Friday at Jane Sanders Stadium.

"That's a great seed," UO coach Mike White said.

The Badgers (33-15) and Tigers (29-26) will play Friday on ESPN at 6 p.m. PT and will be followed by Oregon's regional opener against the Horizon League champion Flames (38-20) at 8:30 p.m. on ESPNU. This is UIC's first appearance in the tournament since 2011. UO played Missouri twice in March and won both times.

The Beavers (28-25) will play in a Waco, Texas, regional hosted by No. 15 Baylor (43-13). OSU will open against James Madison (50-6) Friday at 2 p.m. PT on an ESPN3 broadcast. Kent State (32-26) rounds out that regional field.

"I am so proud of this team," OSU coach Laura Berg said. "These ladies have been working hard since last fall and it is fun to see them get rewarded for that hard work. We have had some ups and downs this season, but we've grown as a team and will fight to make some noise this postseason."

The 64-team bracket was unveiled Sunday on ESPN2, with the top 16 seeds hosting first-round regionals. Three of the top five seeds hailed from the Pac-12, with No. 2 Arizona and No. 5 UCLA joining the Ducks. Florida is the top overall seed.

Arizona finished a half-game ahead of UO in the standings after UO played one less game due to a rainout, and their minuscule separation in the bracket reflected how highly the NCAA selection committee regarded both programs' credentials.

The Eugene regional will conclude Sunday as part of the NCAA's new three-day regional format -- instead of two -- with the winner advancing to a super regional the following weekend. Having the extra day is "good for the game," White said, and better than the possibility of playing a doubleheader on the final day of a regional.

"It's extremely difficult to turn the team around in 20 minutes and be ready to play," he said. "There's a lot at stake."

UO is 21-0 all-time in regional play under White, and if it advances would be in line to host a fifth consecutive super regional against the winner of the Lexington regional featuring No. 14 Kentucky, Illinois, DePaul and Marshall. The Ducks beat Kentucky on Feb. 17. Such a matchup would pit Pac-12 against SEC and highlight what could be a dominant storyline of the tournament, as eight of the Pac-12's nine programs are in the postseason, while all 13 from the SEC earned NCAA berths.

Oregon began the season 35-0 and tied the NCAA record for most consecutive victories to start a season, but then lost six times in eight games, a stretch White called "a little lapse." At that point, White believed the Ducks were "scraping" to get into the top eight seeds nationally.

"It felt like things were impossible a couple weeks ago," UO senior Danica Mercado said. "But we got the ball rolling."

To say the least. Oregon enters the tournament on a 10-game win streak, including a three-game sweep of fourth-seeded Florida State two weeks ago. The series against the Seminoles, White said, was billed inside UO's clubhouse as a pseudo-super regional, a test of its postseason readiness.

The Ducks passed, allowing two runs in three games behind a pitching staff that owns the country's fifth-lowest earned-run average (1.33). That led to a sweep of Stanford over the weekend by a combined score of 26-2.

"Let's face it, we pretty much tied for the Pac-12 championship but just lost on a rainout," White said. "I think we deserve our seed."

The Beavers finished 9-15 in the Pac-12 and were rated 38th in the NCAA RPI, which factors in the strength of a team's schedule, entering this week. They are 19-16 away from Corvallis this season and 4-3 overall since being swept by Oregon in late April.

In its regional opener, Oregon State will face a James Madison team that enters the postseason on a 19-game winning streak.

The Women's College World Series will be hosted in Oklahoma City June 1-7. The Ducks have played in three of the last five WCWS.

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

Correction: Oregon will open the regional Friday. A previous version was incorrect in saying UO would play Illinois-Chicago on Thursday.