TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama softball team got everything it wished for and more when the field for the NCAA Tournament was announced Sunday night.

The Crimson Tide had its No. 3 national ranking upheld by garnering the third overall seed in the 64-team field, the top seeding in the history of a program that will be making its 10th consecutive appearance in the national championship tournament. Alabama was also assured home-field advantage all the way through the regional and super regional rounds, giving the Tide a chance to earn a bid to the Women’s College World Series without ever leaving the Alabama Softball Complex.

To top it off, Saturday’s championship round of the Tuscaloosa Regional will be nationally televised on ESPN2.

Alabama (51-6) will host an NCAA regional on Thursday through Saturday. The Tide will play Tennessee-Chattanooga (41-20) in the first round, with Florida State (37-26) facing Jacksonville State (38-14) in the other first-round game.

“It’s a great feeling,” Alabama coach Patrick Murphy said. “I think it’s a total credit to our fan base. What would be the best thing for us would be if every seat was sold and the whole place was packed and we set a new attendance record for that Saturday night [regional title] game.

“That was the big key going into [the seeding announcement] was hopefully we would be in the top eight [overall seeds] and would be able to host the next round, too. We need to get there, of course, but they’ve set it up for us. Now we need to do our job.”

Alabama hosted a regional last season but was seeded 11th overall after being ranked No. 1 going into the last week of the season. Tide players, who had to play in Seattle in the super regional round, were excited about the draw.

“We’re just thrilled to be at home,” junior catcher Ashley Holcombe said, “because they told us there was a chance that we might have to go out to California or something.

“We’re not looking ahead. We’re just looking forward to UTC right now. I think it’s going to be a tough regional, but we’re ready for it.”

Said junior third baseman Kelley Montalvo, “We weren’t sure. This is good. We wanted to host. There’s nothing like playing at home. Last year having to travel to play at Washington kind of hurt us.

“We have to sit back and take it one game at a time. Every game is important. We can’t take any team lightly because those are the teams that come back.”

Alabama’s 4-1 loss to Florida, which got the top overall seed in the NCAA draw, in Saturday’s championship game at the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Baton Rouge, La., gives UA some fuel for the postseason.

“We’re going to talk about things we need to improve on and do better at,” Murphy said. “We can do it. We’ve done some of those things all year long and we just didn’t do them in that championship game. We’re going to work on several things in practice, improve on what we need to improve on and get ready to play.”

The winner of the Tuscaloosa Regional will host the winner of the Iowa City Regional in the best-of-three super regional round, with the winner advancing to the WCWS in Oklahoma City, Okla. Alabama will host the super regional if it wins its regional. Long Beach State (39-15) is the top seed in the Iowa City Regional and the No. 14 overall seed.

Reach Tommy Deas at tommy.deas@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.