UL’s softball team secured the Sun Belt Conference’s automatic postseason berth Saturday by run-ruling Florida Atlantic in the league tournament title game.

The only thing left for the 25th-ranked Ragin’ Cajuns was to find out where they’d be making their 13th straight regional appearance.

Next stop: Austin, Texas.

Players and coaches gathered Sunday night in the university president’s skybox at Cajun Field to watch the NCAA Selection Show on ESPNU. After about 25 minutes of suspense, the Cajuns (49-9) learned they’d been placed in the Austin Regional with No. 3 national seed Texas (45-8), Houston (40-16) and Texas State (31-23).

The Cajuns open regional play Friday at a time to be determined on ESPNU against Houston, which has two former Cajuns in coach Kyla (Hall) Holas and senior pitcher and Teurlings Catholic graduate Donna Bourgeois. Texas plays Texas State in its first game Friday.

"I think this is nice," Cajuns co-head coach Stefni Lotief said. "It’s a close trip, so hopefully a lot of our fans can come out. There are some great teams there. We’re going to go out there and be ready to compete."

The Cajuns enter regional play with an 11-game winning streak, outscoring their opponents by an 88-13 margin over that stretch since getting swept three weeks ago at FAU.

Including this season the Cajuns have now won 10 of the past 11 regular-season Sun Belt championships and 11 of the last 12 conference tournament titles. That’s more than any other program in the nation during that stretch.

Back in 2008, the Cajuns beat the Cougars in the Houston Super Regional to earn a spot in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

The Austin Regional winner will play the winner of the Knoxville Regional — which includes Tennessee, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech and Liberty — in the Super Regionals for a berth in the College World Series. "We’re excited about it," said Cajuns pitcher Ashley Brignac. "We kind of had an idea of where we were going. Now that we know who we’re playing we’re going to put together a game plan and go at them."

Last season the Cajuns won the Baton Rouge Regional before falling to eventual national champion UCLA in the Los Angeles Super Regional.

The Cajuns have never played in a regional in Austin but were selected for regionals in the state of Texas in 2007 (College Station) and 2009 (Waco).

Houston posted wins this season over multiple top-25 teams, including Oklahoma State, BYU, Fresno State, Texas A&M, LSU (twice), Tulsa (twice) and Baylor (twice). The Cougars shared the Conference USA regular-season title with Tulsa and lost in the league tournament semifinals to eventual champion East Carolina, 1-0.

Holas, a three-time All-American who pitched for the Cajuns from 1991-94, has two experienced pitchers in senior Amanda Crabtree and Bourgeois.

Crabtree is 18-8 this season with a 0.94 ERA in 34 games. Bourgeois has logged a 16-6 mark and 1.68 ERA in 28 appearances and was named Conference USA’s Newcomer of the Year.

Offensively, Houston is led by Conference USA Player of the Year Melissa Gregson. The junior leads the league in home runs (16) and RBI (43) and is hitting .310.

As of last week, the Cajuns led the nation in runs scored per game (7.91), were ninth in team batting average (.333) and 12th in ERA (1.58). Houston, meanwhile, ranked first nationally in ERA (1.28).

"We faced them in Super Regionals (in 2008) and know they have a lot of returning players," Lotief said of Houston. "I think it will be more of the same. We’re not really focused on that. We’re focused on preparing ourselves and being ready to compete."

As for the Cajuns connections with Holas and Bourgeois, Brignac added "the fans are going to bring in hype outside of the game, but our game plan has never been the stuff going on outside the field. The game is played by going at it pitch by pitch on the field. We’re focused on playing."

UL interim director of athletics Scott Farmer, chairman of the NCAA selection committee, told The Daily Advertiser two weeks ago that the Cajuns had put in a bid to be a regional host.

Farmer was unavailable for comment Sunday night after spending the weekend in Indianapolis with the other members of the selection committee.

The Cajuns had hoped to be a regional host in the newly renovated Lamson Park for the first time since 2002. Instead, they’ll be going to Texas later this week.

"We had hopes that we were going to get it, but we weren’t going to dwell on the fact that we didn’t," Brignac said. "We came in here with an open mind and ready to go wherever they sent us."