UH Hilo Vulcans softball earns NCAA Division II tournament berth

The Big Island will have a postseason team with local roots and national reach. UH Hilo softball earned one of 64 spots in the NCAA Division II championship field, giving the Vulcans another chance to put Hilo in front of the country as the tournament opens Thursday with 16 regional sites across the bracket.

Each regional site will host four teams in a double-elimination format from May 14-16. The regional winners will move on to super-regionals on May 21-22, with the Division II finals scheduled for May 28-June 3 at Frost Stadium at Warner Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For UH Hilo, the berth extends a season built around Hawaii talent and gives the program a bigger stage than the PacWest tournament ended up providing.

The Vulcans went 26-17 and entered the PacWest Championship as the No. 3 seed before being eliminated May 7 in La Mirada, California. UH Hilo fell 7-6 to Biola University and then lost 10-2 to Jessup University, with Lexie Tilton and Mia Joaquin driving in the runs in the final game. Even in defeat, the lineup showed the kind of local production that has helped define the roster all season.

That roster includes 14 Hawaii high school graduates, a reminder that UH Hilo is not just a college team on the island but a landing place for homegrown players from across the state. Senior standouts Lexie Tilton, who came out of Iolani, and Rayna White of Mililani are part of that core, giving the Vulcans a statewide identity that resonates in Hilo and beyond.

The berth also adds another chapter to a program with real postseason history. Under longtime former coach Callen Perreira, UH Hilo reached the NCAA tournament four times and won Pacific West Conference titles in 2004 and 2005. Perreira retired in 2021 after 25 years and 694 wins at UH Hilo, leaving a standard this current group is now trying to match on a new stage.