Teams Likely To Be Even More Disappointed When NCAA Tournament Field Announced

BIG RAPIDS - Ferris State University and some other Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference softball teams hurt by the cancellation of the tournament are unlikely to be less disappointed Monday morning when the NCAA Tournament pairings are announced.

The top eight teams in each NCAA Division II region will qualify for NCAA Tournament. From those top eight teams, the top two from each each region will serve as sub-regional tournament hosts on May 14-16. The winners of the sub-regional play in the super regional (May 21-22) with the punching tickets to the 2010 NCAA-II Softball Championships (May 27-31) at Heritage Park in St. Joseph, Mo. The eight NCAA Division II regions are the Atlantic, Central, East, Midwest, South, South Central, Southeast and West.

The selections are set to be announced on Monday, May 10, at 10 a.m. on the Web at NCAA.com.

Ferris and Northwood University were among the teams playing good softball during the season (perhaps better ball than some teams ranked among them in the regional rankings).

As a side note, on Sunday (May 9), Lewis University won the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament courtesy of a 7-5 win over Northern Kentucky University.

In the most recent regional rankings, Ferris was ranked 10th.

Here are the regional rankings as of May 1:

Midwest Region	Division II	In-Region
1. Wayne State (Mich.)	45-10	32-7
2. Ashland	33-11	32-9
3. Indianapolis	34-13	29-7
4. Lewis	28-12	25-8
5. Saginaw Valley State	24-14	20-13
6. Quincy	35-13	32-11
7. Tiffin	31-16	29-13
8. Northern Kentucky	31-16	30-15
9. Northwood	23-17	21-14
10. Ferris State	26-16	24-13