HAMMOND - The Southeastern softball team is in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

The Lions used a Lexi Johnson three-run walk-off home run to beat Incarnate Word Saturday in the Southland Conference Championship game Saturday.

LEXI JOHNSON WALK-OFF HOME RUN ??

Lexi Johnson with the 3-run home run walk-off giving Southeastern Louisiana the 8-7 conference championship win!#NCAASoftball x ?? ESPN+ / @LionUpSoftball pic.twitter.com/spTY7zDlYb

— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 10, 2024

Johnson is one of 18 players on the Southeastern roster from the state of Louisiana. 

"We wanted to build this roster with bayou blood and we've done that from day one from 2016 on and just went after everyone along I 10 and 12," said head coach Rick Fremin. "If they had the boot next to their address, we leaned into that, and that's where we wanted to start, so it's a lot of blue-collar kids that their parents have instilled great culture and great values in at home and that has made my job a lot easier to just to develop them."

The Lions, 45-13 overall, earned the three seed in the Tuscaloosa regional. Thanks to some tough scheduling, Southeastern has three wins against Power Five schools this season.

"We put them in College Station against (Texas) A&M for a reason, we put them in Oxford against Ole Miss for a reason, we had Syracuse and Maryland come here, we were able to take those victories and grab one from Ole Miss," said Fremin. Last year had a phenomenal record of 47 wins, but we didn't have any power five wins. (This year) We let the team in Baton Rouge (LSU) get off the hook in extra innings, and so that was a phenomenal game, our team played really well in that environment, so we built a lot of confidence as we went forward into the season.

Southeastern plays Clemson on Friday at 1 p.m.