Eight regional competitions were held to determine the participants in the final event.
[1] The forty-second tournament's champion was Stanford coached by Mark Marquess.
The opening rounds of the tournament were played across eight regional sites across the country, each consisting of a six-team field.
After 38 seasons as a full double-elimination tournament, the format changed for 1988.
Of the 15 tournaments in which a single championship game was played, this was the only one where both teams entered the final with a loss.