MELBOURNE, Fla. | The 16th-ranked University of Alabama in Huntsville softball team will open up play in its 17th consecutive NCAA tournament on Thursday as the No. 3 seed in the South 2 Regional and taking on sixth-seeded Saint Leo. 
 
First pitch is set for 2:30 p.m. CT at Florida Tech who is hosting the four-team field.
 
The Chargers went 38-15 during the regular season and feature on of the most potent offenses in the nation, ranking 10th in all of Division II in batting average as the squad hits .345, and the team is fifth in the country in scoring with 7.77 runs per game.
 
As a team, UAH gets on base at a .444 clip which is fifth in Division II, and ranking 11th in doubles per game and 23rd in homers per game, the Chargers are eighth nationally with a .546 slugging percentage.
 
Shelby Booker paces the team with a .447 batting average which is also the 26th-best mark in the country, while Jada Hayes has knocked in 51 runs on the year to lead the team in RBI. Ashley Cornell is also hitting above .400 at .419, and with 16 walks and 15 times being hit by a pitch, she owns a team-high .517 on-base percentage.
 
The UAH pitching staff is anchored by a pair of 11-game winners in Kiara Akles and Layton Murphy, and the pair have combined for 109 strikeouts with 54 and 55, respectively.
 
Saint Leo enters the weekend at 31-16, and pitching is its strength as the team features a staff ERA of 2.10 which is the 23rd-best mark in Division II.
 
Sara Neuman leads the SLU pitchers with a 1.29 ERA, and that ranks 13th in the country. Auria Mounts has a team-high 12 wins while also leading the Lions with 78 strikeouts. 
 
Offensively, Kelly Kacie is hitting .378 to lead Saint Leo, and Kendyl Crean has driven in a team-high 35 runs.
 
The two teams met on the first day of the regular season with Saint Leo winning 13-5. In that contest, both Akles and Amber Hammonds had a pair of hits to lead the Chargers, while SLU featured three batters who had three-hit games.
 
The two programs have met eight times in the regional including six meetings in the past three tournaments, and the Chargers are 6-2 all-time against the Lions in the postseason. 
 
A year ago, the two squads met in the South Super Regional, and Saint Leo took the best-of-three series in a trio of contests that featured a run differential of just two.
 
Overall this is UAH's 22nd appearance in the NCAA tournament, and the Chargers are 61-44 overall in the event. 
 
The winner of Thursday's game will play the winner of Florida Tech and Mississippi College on Friday at 9 a.m. CT, while the two losing teams will play at 11:30 a.m. CT.