BenU Softball Seeded Seventh for Division III Tournament

submitted by Benedictine University Athletics

softball travels to Bloomington, Ill. on Thursday as the No. 7 seed in the 2012 NCAA Division III Softball Tournament.

The Eagles have been selected to face the No. 2 seed, Linfield, at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 10. Benedictine is currently 33-9 on the year while the NCAA defending champions of Linfield are 38-5. Benedictine swept the Northern Athletics Conference Tournament for the second straight year to earn the automatic bid while Linfield, who lost the Northwest Conference Championship Tournament to regular-season runner-up Pacific Lutheran, received an at-large berth to the regional tournament.

Benedictine will give everything they have against the defending champs. Senior Brittany Adcox will be on the hill, and was just named the Northern Athletics Conference pitcher and player of the year, with her 1.49 ERA and 24 wins. The Eagles had four First Team All-Conference selections including Adcox and Brittany Wolski who leads the team and the league in batting average with .486 and 33 steals. All three players as well as sophomore Kelly Mieszala were named to the All-Region team last season. Mieszala is second on the team with a .444 average and has three doubles and a team-high 13 doubles on the season.

The eight-team Bloomington, Ill., regional features three teams from the latest national rankings - IWU is No. 8, defending national champion Linfield (Ore.) as the No. 2 seed, and No. 20 Carthage is the No. 3 seed.

The NCAA selection committee announced the 61-team Division III playoff field Monday morning as part of a streamed internet selection show on NCAA.com. Thirty-five conferences were granted automatic qualification and six independents were selected for the 2012 championship. The 19 remaining teams were selected on an at-large basis from automatic qualifying conferences and the remaining independent institutions.

Six regional sites will have eight teams competing to advance while seven teams will compete at one regional site and six teams will compete at another regional site. All regional sites will use a double-elimination format.

For more information please visit the Benedictine Athletics website at BenUEagles.com or follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/BenUEagles.