NCAA Softball Tournament Results: Pitt softball makes regional final with wins against Oakland, Cal

The Pitt softball team continued its impressive postseason run, even while facing elimination.

The Panthers knocked off Oakland on Saturday afternoon, 6-3, in a comeback win after trailing 3-2 late in the game. That set up a rematch with Cal, who was previously defeated by Michigan. Pitt lost to the No. 19 Bears on Friday to open the tournament, but they bounced back with a 6-3 win only a half hour after knocking out Oakland.

Pitt has had far too many heroes to count since the beginning of the ACC Tournament. But Jenna Modic deserves some credit lately with a grand slam in that Cal game yesterday, and two home runs, a .500 batting average, and six RBI this weekend. And obviously, the pitching was spot on, too. That's thanks to Kayla Harris' 16 strikeouts and only three earned runs given up in 13 1/3 innings pitched in both games. As a true freshman in such a big spot with so much on the line, she came up huge. Coach Holly Aprile called it her best effort of the season.

Finally, another freshman, McKayla Taylor came up big again. Her home run against Oakland cut the deficit and was the 14th of the season. One more would tie the all-time Pitt record of 15 for a single year.

All of that sent the Panthers forward to the regional final against unbeaten Michigan.

Pitt takes on the Wolverines today at 3:30 p.m. on ESPNU. Should they upset Michigan in the initial game they would then need to beat them again (since Pitt has one loss and Michigan has none in the double elimination tournament). And again, they'd need to do so on short rest with the game starting at 6:00 p.m.

The Panthers have already had a historic season by getting to the ACC Tournament finals, getting to the NCAA Tournament, and now, advancing to the regional. While beating Michigan twice seems like a tall feat, so did beating ranked Notre Dame and North Carolina on back to back days in the ACC Tournament. So did beating Cal yesterday after the Bears mercy-ruled them in their initial game.

Ruling Pitt out at this point just seems foolish.

So, I mean, let's go.