Pairings Announced for 2008 Horizon League Softball Championship

May 4, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

INDIANAPOLIS - Cleveland State University earned the No. 1 seed for the 2008 Horizon League Softball Championship after it claimed its first-ever regular-season League title with a 14-4 conference record (29-16 overall).

The three-day tournament is scheduled to begin on at 9 a.m. (Central) on Thursday (May 8) at Loyola Softball Park in Chicago, Ill.

As the top seed in this year's tournament, Cleveland State will receive a first-round bye. In addition, No. 2 seed Valparaiso University (12-5 Horizon League; 30-17 overall) and No. 3 seed Wright State University (13-7; 29-24) will also earn opening round byes. In 2007, the Raiders won the League tournament as the No. 7 seed.

Game one of the championship will place No. 6 seed University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (4-9; 10-23) against No. 7 seed Butler University (5-12; 16-27). The winner of game one will face Cleveland State in game four at 4 p.m.

Number-five seed University of Illinois at Chicago (12-9; 22-31) will play No. 8 seed Youngstown State University (6-16; 12-35) in game two at 11 a.m. with the victor moving on to face Valparaiso in game five at 6 p.m.

The final game of the first round will feature No. 4 seed Loyola University Chicago (12-7; 18-23) versus No. 9 seed University of Detroit Mercy (4-13; 11-26) at 1 p.m. The winner of that matchup will face Wright State at 8 p.m. in game six.

Live stats of all tournament games will be available via the Horizon League website at www.horizonleague.org. Also, free live video webcasts of Saturday's action will be shown on the Horizon League Network at www.horizonleaguenetwork.tv.

The 2008 championship pairings and bracket can be found in the .PDF version of this release