texas-a-m-softball.jpg
Getty Images

The Liberty Flames made NCAA women's softball tournament history on Sunday night, as they became the first team to beat the No. 1 overall seed in the regional round by knocking off Texas A&M in a thrilling three-game series in College Station. 

The Aggies went 45-9 in the regular season to earn the nation's top seed in the tournament bracket and steamrolled St. Francis (PA) and Marist in their regional, but ran into trouble against Liberty. The Flames stunned the Aggies in their first game with an 8-5 win, setting up a regional championship showdown on Sunday. 

Despite falling behind 6-0 after two innings, Texas A&M rallied to win 14-11 in the first game of the afternoon, scoring three in the eighth to force a winner-take-all matchup later that evening. That game proved to be another back-and-forth battle, this time with the Aggies jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead, but the Flames were not to be extinguished that easily. 

Liberty's bats got hot at just the right time in the sixth inning, as they scored five runs on a pair of two-out home runs from Savannah Jessee and Rachel Roupe (her second of the game) to go up 6-3. 

The Aggies would answer with a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth to trim the deficit to 6-5, setting the stage for some final inning tension in College Station. With two on and two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Liberty's Kaylan Yoder came up with the pitch she needed, running a fastball up in the zone to get a swing and a miss to end the game and send the Flames to the Super Regionals. 

It was an historic night for the Flames on multiple levels, as they made it to the Super Regionals for the first time in school history and became the first team in NCAA history to knock the No. 1 overall seed out in the regional round. The Aggies will now hold a place in the NCAA record books for the wrong reasons, but they were far from the only seeded squad knocked out before the Super Regionals this year. 

No. 10 LSU, No. 13 Arizona and No. 14 Duke all got bounced as regional hosts, with Nebraska, Ole Miss and Georgia coming out on top of those regionals instead.