Full of programs accustomed to making deep NCAA Tournament runs, the Gulf South Conference Softball Championship this week is going to be a lot of fun.

The league’s annual postseason tournament kicks off Wednesday at Choccolocco Park in Oxford, Alabama, as eight teams will vie for the conference’s coveted automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Regionals. Regular-season champion Auburn Montgomery, one of five teams to earn first-place votes in the league’s preseason poll, emerged from the jumble to become the tournament’s top seed.

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That being said, the Warhawks were far from being a dominant champion, and seven other talented squads are chomping at the bit to try and take AUM’s dream of a league double away from them. That’s all to say that chaos should reign at Choccolocco Park, and FloCollege is here to exclusively stream it live for your entertainment along the way.

Here’s a look ahead at the GSC Softball Championship, with previews of all eight teams beginning their postseason journeys this week:

NOTE: All game times are listed in Eastern Time. 

No. 1 Auburn Montgomery Softball

• Record: 34-10 overall (25-8 GSC)
• First game: vs. No. 8 Trevecca Nazarene, 7 p.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: The mission for the Warhawks this season has been simple: get back to the World Series and finish the job. The No. 1 national seed going into last year’s NCAA D-II Softball Championship, AUM’s dream season came to a close earlier than preferred as Western Washington eliminated it in the national quarterfinals. 

The Warhawks have responded to that heartbreak by coming out with a vengeance for 2025, winning their first GSC regular-season crown in three years and picking up five top 10-ranked victories along the way with the conference’s best pitching staff (1.79 team ERA, 14 shutouts) by far.

Impact player: Reese Cauley, RHP/UTL

It’s not enough to merely call Cauley one of the best freshmen in the country — she’s the ace on one of the most dynamite pitching staffs in all of D-II (1.79 team ERA, sixth nationally). Together with fellow underclassman hurler Chelisa Newsome (14-4, 1.42 ERA), the Warhawks have one of the best one-two punches in the circle you’ll find in America, with Cauley leading the charge by holding an 18-4 record with a GSC-low 1.34 ERA heading into the GSC Championship. 

Tossing 12 complete games with four shutouts in 14 starts, Cauley is holding opposing hitters to a minuscule .166 average this year as she’s as reliable as it gets on the mound, adding firepower to AUM as it hunts for another trip to the World Series.

No. 2 West Florida Softball

• Record: 33-15 (22-11)
• First game: vs. No. 7 Montevallo, 1:30 p.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: The Argonauts were the only team in the GSC this year to finish the regular season in the top three for both batting average (.321, first) and ERA (2.66, third), and with their highest seeding at the GSC Championship in six years in tow, UWF is primed to make the leap toward a potential first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2021. 

No one in the conference was able to terrorize the basepaths more than the Argos over the past few months (GSC-best 653 total bases) as five qualified hitters have averages of at least .350 or better, all while their pitchers have hurled 11 shutouts as a unit to make them an all-around force to be reckoned with this postseason.

Impact player: Haley Guffey, RHP

A workhorse on the mound who started a league-high 32 games in the regular season while pitching over 200 innings, Guffey is relied on heavily by UWF to produce — and she delivers almost every single time. 

In her first season with the Argos after dominating the junior college level for two seasons, the junior immediately came into UWF’s rotation and dominated by throwing a GSC-best nine shutouts, three more than the next-closest pitcher on the list, while holding a 22-6 record and a 2.04 ERA heading into the postseason. Guffey also appears to be playing at her best at just the right time, notching wins in each of her last five appearances.

No. 3 Mississippi College Softball

• Record: 34-15 (22-11)
• First game: vs. No. 6 West Alabama, 11 a.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: The only team to sweep Auburn Montgomery in the regular season (when the Warhawks were then-ranked No. 2 in the country, no less), the Choctaws might be the best team talent-wise in the GSC when all cylinders are firing. 

Last year’s GSC champion, who won 48 games and was denied a trip to the World Series by the Warhawks in the NCAA Super Regional, is missing a little bit of firepower from its historic 2024 season, but MC should undoubtedly be considered one of the favorites to earn the league’s auto-bid this week in Oxford. The Choctaws could use it, too, as they are currently the No. 7-ranked team in the NCAA South Regional rankings and could be knocked out of at-large consideration with a poor performance. 

Impact player: Shelby Samples, OF

Samples needed to take a leap for the Choctaws to shine after the graduations of MC all-time hits leader McCall Lee and over-.400 hitter Jordan LaFosse last season, and the Arkansas native has absolutely delivered. 

She finished second in the GSC and first among players who’ll be playing postseason ball with a blistering career-high .428 average, hitting in 15 consecutive games going into the GSC Championship as she additionally ranks in the top three in the conference in both hits (68) and runs (41). Samples is also difficult to strike out, only being fanned on three strikes seven times in 159 at-bats this year, being an opportunistic hitter who consistently creates problems for pitching staffs.

No. 4 Alabama Huntsville Softball

• Record: 27-20 (19-12)
• First game: vs. No. 5 Valdosta State, 4:30 p.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: The Chargers were favored to take the GSC regular-season crown in the preseason, but some up-and-down play throughout the schedule saw them miss out on challenging AUM for the top seed and fall to the No. 4 hole for the GSC Championship. 

Still, no pitching staff in the league struck out more batters (276) than UAH, and getting some elite-level play from their arms will be the key for the Chargers if they want to make the NCAA Tournament for the 22nd straight season — a streak that is in danger at the moment as they are currently not among the top 10 in the NCAA’s South Regional rankings.

Impact player: Katie Bracken, RHP

The GSC Pitcher of the Year and an All-American as a freshman two seasons ago, Bracken has never struggled in the two years since, per se, but the ceiling is clearly there for her to go on a dominant stretch and lead the Chargers back to the Regional round as their long run of consecutive NCAA berths is on the ropes. 

Holding a 2.70 ERA with the second-most strikeouts of any pitcher in the league (178) despite only throwing 155⅔ innings to date this season, Bracken consistently mows down hitters as she has six double-digit strikeout outings on the year, including two in back-to-back days earlier this month against Trevecca Nazarene.

No. 5 Valdosta State Softball

• Record: 26-23 (19-13)
• First game: vs. No. 4 Alabama Huntsville, 4:30 p.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: Want to see a clash of opposites on Wednesday? Look no further than the Valdosta State-Alabama Huntsville showdown in the opening round, which sees the strikeout-happy Chargers go up against the powerful bats of the Blazers. 

Despite ranking near the middle of the pack in the conference in hits (355) and batting average (.277), VSU absolutely obliterated the rest of the league when it came to long bombs with 63 home runs, 27 more than second-placed West Florida and Lee. Pitching has been a weak point, however, as the Blazers enter the GSC Championship with the highest team ERA (4.12) of any team in the league still playing, but sometimes VSU’s bats are still too good to be denied, like when it had an 11-game winning streak in March.

Impact player: Aniston Gano, INF

The best all-around hitter in the conference, Gano, who has hit double-digit homers in four straight seasons, does it all at the plate as a veteran leader who gets the job done time and time again. 

The fifth-year senior can hit for average (.401 this season) and power (league-leading 17 home runs) while staying disciplined (10 strikeouts, 35 walks in 142 at-bats) as she’s been the ringleader of the most explosive offense in the GSC, made even more impressive by the fact that she did not go long in her first 12 games of 2025. Gano eventually sent softballs flying on a routine basis, however, having a pair of multi-homer games as she found her stride as the season went along.

No. 6 West Alabama Softball

• Record: 30-17 (19-13)
• First game: vs. No. 3 Mississippi College, 11 a.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: If you’re a neutral watcher looking for a dark-horse candidate to take over this week in Oxford, look no further than West Alabama. The Tigers started the GSC slate 4-0 with a win over AUM, after all, and though they eventually slipped out of regular-season title contention, the pitching staff remained one of the conference’s best as only the Warhawks had a better mark than UWA’s 2.22 team ERA. 

Consistent production throughout the lineup can fall a bit flat at times, but with one of the league’s best weapons at the plate (that we’ll get to talking about in just a second), the Tigers can wreak havoc on anyone else in the league at any given time.

Impact player: Marissa Mitchell, INF

Last year’s GSC Player of the Year and the reigning D-II RBIs champion, Mitchell’s stats dipped a bit from her fantastic first season at UWA in 2024 after transferring in from Tuskegee, but we’re still talking about a former All-American and one of the most lethal hitters in the country here. 

Even in a “down” season, Mitchell is still hitting .398 with the second-most homers (15) and third-most RBIs (43) in the GSC, and she batted well over .400 for much of the year before a recent slide. Four different games this season of at least four RBIs show her explosiveness, however, and she will need to be respected by any pitcher that faces her this week.

No. 7 Montevallo Softball

• Record: 30-22 (19-14)
• First game: vs. No. 2 West Florida, 1:30 p.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: There have been plenty of bright spots for the Falcons this season, like when they swept a then No. 24-ranked West Alabama squad in mid-March, beat a No. 6 AUM team on the regular season’s final day, and hit the 30-wins mark for the first time since 2018. 

They’re also sneaky-hot going into the GSC Championship, having gone 13-3 across their final 16 games with three shutout victories in that same stretch, making Montevallo a case of potentially being a much more dangerous threat than its seeding suggests. Only one hitter ranking in the top 25 league-wide in batting average does hurt the Falcons’ chances, however, but having two qualified pitchers with sub-3.00 ERAs will make them a tricky out at Choccolocco Park. 

Impact player: Taylor Lloyd, RHP

One of the more underrated aces in the conference, Lloyd is already the program’s career leader in shutouts and likely would’ve had a better record than 14-10 with more consistent run support, considering that she enters the postseason with a 2.15 ERA that puts her tied for sixth in the GSC going into the conference tournament. 

A dependable arm who locates her pitches well — she’s tallied 131 strikeouts compared to just 26 walks in 163 innings thrown this year — Lloyd can throw gems that make her near-unhittable on any given night, like when she tossed a complete-game one hitter against Christian Brothers on April 12 and had a no-hitter last season. Together with another solid starting arm in Rachel Whiddon (2.94 ERA in 24 appearances), the Falcons have good credentials on the mound that can make up for the second-lowest team batting average (.269) of any GSC team playing this week. 

No. 8 Trevecca Nazarene Softball

• Record: 27-17 (16-17)
• First game: vs. No. 1 Auburn Montgomery, 7 p.m. Wednesday

The lowdown: The new kids on the block who just finished their first regular season in their new league after moving from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in the offseason, the Trojans — who were within one game of making the World Series a season ago — started the 2025 campaign red-hot, winning their first nine games and going unbeaten in nonconference play. 

Life in the GSC did not come easily for TNU, however, and though it comfortably made the GSC Championship by four games over ninth-placed Lee, an under-.500 record in conference play means that the Trojans get a date with AUM (which held them to a combined one run in three matchups in the regular season) to start their postseason. Still, don’t expect a Trevecca elimination to come at the hands of its defense (GSC-best .971 fielding percentage).

Impact player: Ashlan Sensing, RHP

Sensing arrived in the GSC with serious chops, winning the 2024 G-MAC Pitcher of the Year award with multiple All-America honors on top of it last season, and she’s proved her worth as one of the conference’s top arms. D-II’s active career leader in a host of pitching categories including wins, shutouts and innings pitched, Sensing has led the Trojans to 20 of their 27 wins on the season while being the best non-AUM hurler in the GSC with a 1.68 ERA, just above the 1.51 career mark she’s tallied over 736⅓ innings pitched across four years at Trevecca. 

Tallying 715 career strikeouts compared to just 99 walks, any lingering questions going into the season that Sensing couldn’t handle the bats of the GSC have been firmly debunked, though she and the rest of the Trojans will need a particularly special performance to knock off the Warhawks.

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