SOUTH BEND, Ind. – After claiming its highest Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference seed in program history, Indiana University South Bend baseball begins the quest for its first conference tournament title Friday, May 7 at DuPage Medical Group Field in Joliet, Ill.
The Titans enter the tournament as the four seed and will face five-seeded and host St. Francis at 11 a.m. ET to start the weekend.
Olivet Nazarene took the regular season crown as the Tigers posted a 22-8 record in conference play and held the head-to-head tiebreaker over St. Ambrose to claim the second seed with a 22-8 league record after being swept by the Titans in the final weekend series.
Judson (21-9) garnered the third seed while IUSB (19-11) rounded out the top-four spots.
IU South Bend clinched the three-game weekend series with St. Francis in the regular-season having defeated the Fighting Saints at home on Friday, April 2 by a score of 9-4 before defeating USF, 12-6, in the first game of the doubleheader in Joliet, Ill. on April 3. The doubleheader night cap came down to the final inning but the Titan rally fell short, 6-5.
The Titans are hot entering the tournament, riding an impressive series sweep over league leader St. Ambrose on May 1 & 2. IUSB concluded the regular-season at 23-22, its first winning season in its short six-year program history, and have won six of its last seven outings.
The opening round of the CCAC Tournament begins Friday, May 7 and will run through Wednesday, May 12 at DuPage Medical Group Field in Joliet, Ill. The tournament format is a double-elimination and features eight teams after it expanded to include all 11 teams this season in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lost 2020 season. Seeds six through 11 played a game on Tuesday, May 4 to qualify for Joliet.
The tournament is comprised of four games on each of the first three days – Friday, Saturday, Monday – with the potential for the championship on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET. A second championship game would commence on Wednesday, also at 8, if necessary.
Host St. Francis and Indiana University South Bend cut the ribbon on the opening of the tournament Friday morning.
Along with Olivet Nazarene as the regular-season champion, the winner of the tournament also advances to the NAIA National Tournament Opening Round, which runs May 17-20 at nine different sites. Should the Tigers also claim the conference tournament, the second-place tournament finisher would earn the league’s second automatic bid to the Opening Round.
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