UNI as good as in for conference baseball tournament

Northern Iowa still has the inside track to a spot in the Missouri Valley Conference baseball tournament heading into the final weekend of the regular season. U-N-I visits league-leader Southwest Missouri State beginning Friday and the Panthers have a two game lead over Creighton for the final spot in the tournament.U-N-I coach Rick Heller says the Panthers would have to lose all four games this weekend and have Creighton win three of four against Wichita State to knock U-N-I out of the tournament. He says unless something out of the ordinary happens, they will be in the tournament.U-N-I missed an opportunity to clinch a spot in the tournament by dropping three of four games to Illinois State this past weekend. Heller says after winning the first game of that series, the Panthers struggled the rest of the weekend. U-N-I is 13-15 in the Valley.