BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - The Illinois Wesleyan softball team will play in the NCAA regional at Wisconsin-Whitewater beginning Thursday (May 9) as the No. 2 seed and faces No. 7 seed Benedictine at 4 p.m. in the opening round.

Whitewater Regional Website   |   Whitewater Regional Bracket

The 31-9 Titans earned one of 21 at-large berths into the 62-team Division III national tournament as 41 teams received automatic qualifying bids.

Tickets for the regional are $6 for adults and $3 for students for each day.

Illinois Wesleyan will be making its 12th NCAA tournament appearance and second in a row. IWU teams have posted a 22-22 record (.500 winning percentage) in NCAA competition and won three of five games last year.

Benedictine is 27-13 and in the tournament as a result of winning the Northern Athletics Conference tournament title, beating Aurora. The Eagles have three players hitting over .400 - senior outfielder Amanda Straka (.427), junior shortstop Erin Kotlarz (.417, 19 steals) and freshman catcher Kailee Cable (.407, 14 doubles, 47 RBI). Freshman Melissa Guzior is 14-6 with a 1.74 earned run average and Ashley Parrott is 5-0 with a 0.73 ERA

The host school Wisconsin-Whitewater is the No. 1 seed in the regional with a 31-5 record and will play Finlandia (25-6) in the opening game at 10 a.m.

With a distinct College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin flavor, other first day regional games at Whitewater's van Steenderen Field are No. 4-seed Carthage (30-10) vs. No. 5 Luther (28-9) at 12 p.m. and No. 3-seed Wisconsin-Eau Claire (26-7) opposes No. 6-seed North Central (32-10) at 2 p.m. Other regional teams' web sites:


Augustana, last weekend's CCIW tournament champions, were sent to the Pella, Iowa, regional where they will meet Fontbonne.

In addition to Whitewater and Pella, other regional sites are Salem (Va.), Ithaca (N.Y.), Angola (Ind.), Babson Park (Mass.), Tyler (Texas) and Montclair (N.J.).  Each regional uses a double elimination format.

The finals, hosted by the U. of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, will be held May 17-21 at the Carson Park in Eau Claire, Wis.