ANGOLA, IND.-- The field for the 2014 NCAA Division III Softball Tournament was announced Tuesday morning, with the Thunder set to host a four-team NCAA Regional this coming weekend.
Trine will serve as the host institution for the tournament, which runs Friday through Sunday. The Thunder will open the tournament against Washington & Jefferson College, who earned the automatic bid out of the Presidents Athletic Conference. The two teams will square off in the 3:30 p.m. game Friday, May 9. DePauw and Muskingum will play in the opening game of the tournament at 1:00 p.m. the same day. Each team earned automatic bids in winning their conference tournaments. DePauw won the North Coast Athletic Conference with a 5-4 victory over Wittenberg in the title game, while Muskingum won the Ohio Athletic Conference bid with a 7-2 victory over Ohio Northern.
This will be Trine's seventh-consecutive trip to the NCAA Regionals. This year's Regional follows a different format from previous seasons. Regions have been downsized to four teams from the previous eight-team format. The tournament will still follow double-elimination format.
The Regional champion advances to the best-of-three Super Regional at a yet-to-be-determined site. The winner of the Trine Regional will face the winner of the Emory Regional in Georgia, made up of Emory, Piedmont, Lynchburg and Agnes Scott.