KANSAS CITY, Mo. - HBCU Athletic Conference champions Stillman College received the program's first automatic bid to the 44th annual NAIA Softball National Championship. Stillman will be the No. 4 seed in its bracket and meet the overall NAIA No. 1 University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma on May 12 at 3 p.m. at the NAIA Softball Opening Round, hosted by USAO at Bill Smith Ballpark in Chickasha, Oklahoma. The double-elimination NAIA Opening Round will run May 12 through May 15.
 

The Tigers (33-11) will travel from West Alabama to a campus located on West Alabama Avenue for their first-ever meeting against USAO (47-7), which won the Sooner Athletic Conference regular season and tournament with a 33-3 conference record.

Grand View University (37-13) from Iowa is the No. 2 seed in the bracket and will meet 3-seed Freed-Hardeman University (20-15) from Tennessee. 

Stillman is the first HBCU to make consecutive trips to the NAIA Tournament since the tournament began in 1981. The Tigers received an at-large bid in 2024 and went 2-2 in the Opening Round at William Carey University. The two wins were the first by an HBCU in NAIA Softball National Championship history. Talladega College in 2012 and 2018 is the only other HBCU to have two NAIA national tournament appearances.
 

This year, Stillman went 15-0 to win the HBCU Athletic Conference regular season and then ran the table at the HBCUAC Championships with three wins. The Tigers are riding their third-consecutive 30-win season.

The 2025 NAIA Softball National Championship will feature 48 teams, with two opening round sites of four teams and eight that are played in five-team brackets. Each opening round is played in a double elimination format. For a complete schedule, visit NAIA.org/softball.
 

The other NAIA Opening Rounds are hosted by Central Methodist (Mo.), University of the Cumberlands (Ky.), Georgia Gwinnett, Indiana Wesleyan, Northwestern (Iowa), Oklahoma City University, Oregon Tech, Our Lady of the Lakes (Texas) and Southern Oregon. The winners of each Opening Round will advance to the NAIA Softball World Series in Columbus, Georgia, May 22-28.