Championship Central |
Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS – The 2018 Great Lakes Valley Conference Softball Championship Tournament bracket is set for this week's event, which will be held May 3-5 at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Ill. The University of Illinois Springfield clinched its first-ever regular season Conference title and will be the top seed entering the double-elimination postseason event for the first time in program history, as well. The No. 2 seed will be McKendree University, followed by No. 3 University of Indianapolis, No. 4 University of Missouri-St. Louis, and No. 5 Truman State University. The sixth seed will be University of Southern Indiana and rounding out the eight-team field is No. 7 William Jewell College and No. 8 Missouri S&T.
Seventeenth-ranked Illinois Springfield (35-14, 22-6 GLVC) garnered the event’s No. 1 seed and will face No. 8 Missouri S&T (25-25, 14-14) on Thursday, May 3 at 10 a.m. The Prairie Stars make their second-straight and fourth overall postseason berth, while the Miners picked up the final seed in the postseason for their first appearance since 2010 and sixth all-time. UIS and S&T split their regular-season twinbill, as the Miners grabbed an 8-1 win in game one and the Stars won the second game of the DH 9-2.
McKendree (37-14, 20-8) earns its third consecutive trip to the GLVC tournament as the No. 2 seed and will play seventh-seeded William Jewell (28-20, 15-13) at 12 p.m. on Thursday. On April 7, the Cardinals won the first game of the DH 2-1, while the 25th-ranked Bearcats bounced back for a 7-6 game-two win. Jewell dropped to the 7-seed after losing a three-way tie with Truman State and Southern Indiana, as Truman had the best combined record (3-1) of the three teams tied, while USI was 2-2, and WJC was 1-3.
Indianapolis (36-16, 18-10), receiving votes in the latest NFCA top-25 poll, enters the tournament as the No. 3 seed and will battle No. 6 Southern Indiana (27-22, 15-13) on Thursday at 12 p.m. UIndy swept USI in Evansville with wins of 5-2 and 8-1. The Greyhounds are in their 16th-straight and 28th overall postseason competition, while the Screaming Eagles enter for the fourth time in a row and 25th in program history.
Fourth-seed Missouri-St. Louis (30-20, 17-11) and fifth-seed Truman (26-18, 15-3) head to East Peoria after UMSL swept TSU on March 30 in St. Louis, 7-2 and 5-4. With its fifth berth, the Bulldogs have now made the softball championship every season since joining the league, while the Tritons make their sixth consecutive appearance for a total of 18. The two teams will meet on Thursday at 10 a.m.
The event will mark the 35th GLVC Softball Championship Tournament and 14th-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 (with ID) and youth (K-12) while all those under 5 will be admitted free.
For more information, log on to the championship homepage at GLVCsports.com/2018softball.