Championship Central |
Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS – The bracket is set for this week's 2017 Great Lakes Valley Conference Softball Championship Tournament, which will be held May 4-6 at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Ill. The University of Southern Indiana and Rockhurst University share the Conference’s regular season title, but Southern Indiana garnered the top seed after winning the tiebreaker, entering the double-elimination postseason event. The No. 2 seed will be Rockhurst, followed by No. 3 University of Missouri-St. Louis, No. 4 Truman State University and No. 5 McKendree University. The sixth seed will be University of Illinois Springfield and rounding out the eight-team field is No. 7 Bellarmine University and No. 8 William Jewell College.
Fifth-ranked Southern Indiana (40-10, 19-7 GLVC) garnered the event’s No. 1 seed by beating Rockhurst in a tiebreaker based on its common-opponent sweep over University of Indianapolis, after the co-regular season champions split a twinbill in Evansville on March 19. The Screaming Eagles will face No. 8 William Jewell (25-25, 14-14) on Thursday, May 4 at 10 a.m. The Cardinals make their fourth postseason berth after picking up the final seed. USI has now made the tournament for the third-straight season and will be looking for its first title since 1998. Earlier in the season, the teams split in their first league doubleheader of the season March 18 with scores of 8-0 (USI win) and 7-6 (WJC win).
Rockhurst (30-20, 19-7), earning its first-ever regular season title, will be the second seed and play seventh-seeded Bellarmine (26-26, 14-14) at 12 p.m. on Thursday, May 4. On March 9, the Hawks swept the Knights 9-1 and 7-4. Bellarmine earned the 7-seed by having the best combined record (3-1) of the final three teams tied, while William Jewell earned the 8-seed by going 2-2 against BU and UIndy.
Missouri-St. Louis (35-13, 17-7) enters the tournament as the No. 3 seed and will battle No. 6 Illinois Springfield (31-21, 17-11) on Thursday, Mary 4 at 12 p.m. The teams split in St. Louis with UMSL winning 4-3 in 10 innings in game one before UIS bounced back for a 6-1 victory in the nightcap. The Tritons are in their fifth-straight postseason tournament, while the Prairie Stars enter for the fourth time in program history.
Fourth-seed Truman State (35-19, 18-10) and fifth-seed McKendree (30-19, 16-10) head to East Peoria with a split on their resume from March 24 in Lebanon that saw McKendree recover for the 8-2 win in game two after Truman won the first 10-1 in six innings. With its fourth berth, Truman has now made the softball postseason event every season since joining the league, while the Bearcats make their second consecutive appearance after making their first program bid a year ago.
The event will mark the 34th GLVC Softball Championship Tournament and 13th-straight time it has been held at the EastSide Centre.
An all-tournament pass can be purchased for $25 and admit the holder to all events over the three-day period. Single-day tickets are priced as follows: $10 for adults, $5 for students and youth (K-12) while all those under 5 will be admitted free.
For more information, log on to the championship site:
GLVCsports.com/softball17.