SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Southern Conference has announced the seeding for the 2018 SoCon Softball Championship, which begins Wednesday at the UNCG Softball Stadium on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Regular-season champion UNCG (43-11, 13-3 SoCon) is the tournament’s top seed for the second consecutive year. The Spartans clinched the regular-season title with their series win over Samford, giving the program its first outright SoCon regular-season title and second consecutive title. The Spartans will enjoy a day off on Wednesday before starting tournament play on Thursday at 12:30 p.m.
The first game of the double-elimination tournament, which is set for Wednesday at 10 a.m., will feature No. 4 seed Chattanooga (25-27, 9-7 SoCon) against No. 5 seed Samford (18-36, 7-9 SoCon). The winner of that game will move on to face UNCG on Thursday. In the two teams’ regular-season series, the Mocs took two of three from the Bulldogs in Birmingham, Alabama.
Second-seeded Mercer (32-17, 11-5 SoCon) will meet No. 7 seed Western Carolina (15-35, 2-15 SoCon) in Wednesday’s 12:30 p.m. matchup. The Bears took two of three from the Catamounts in the regular-season series.
No. 3 seed Furman (38-13, 10-6 SoCon) and No. 6 seed ETSU (16-25, 4-11 SoCon) will wrap up Wednesday’s action at 3 p.m. The Paladins got the best of the Bucs in their regular-season meeting, sweeping ETSU in Greenville, South Carolina.
Thursday’s slate of games will begin at 10 a.m. and eventually conclude with an 8 p.m. contest. The remaining teams will compete in three games on Friday, which are scheduled for noon, 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Saturday will feature a championship game at 1 p.m., which may be followed by a 3 p.m. contest if the early game represents the first loss of the tournament for one of the teams. ESPN+ will broadcast Saturday’s action.
All games leading up to Saturday will be broadcast on the SoCon Digital Network.
2018 SoCon Softball Championship
UNCG Softball Stadium ▪ Greensboro, North Carolina
Wednesday, May 9
Game 1: No. 4 Chattanooga vs. No. 5 Samford, 10 a.m., SDN
Game 2: No. 2 Mercer vs. No. 7 Western Carolina, 12:30 p.m., SDN
Game 3: No. 3 Furman vs. No. 6 ETSU, 3 p.m., SDN
Thursday, May 10
Game 4: Loser of Game 2 vs. Loser of Game 3, 10 a.m., SDN
Game 5: No. 1 UNCG vs. Winner of Game 1, 12:30 p.m., SDN
Game 6: Winner of Game 2 vs. Winner of Game 3, 3 p.m., SDN
Game 7: Loser of Game 5 vs. Winner of Game 4 , 5:30 p.m., SDN
Game 8: Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 6, 8 p.m., SDN
Friday, May 11
Game 9: Winner of Game 5 vs. Winner of Game 6, Noon, SDN
Game 10: Winner of Game 7 vs. Winner of Game 8, 2:30 p.m., SDN
Game 11: Loser of Game 9 vs. Winner of Game 10, 5 p.m., SDN
Saturday, May 12
Game 12: Winner of Game 9 vs. Winner of Game 11, 1 p.m., ESPN+
Game 13: IF NECESSARY, 3 p.m., ESPN+
All times are Eastern.