U.N.I. and Drake are both seeded high in this week’s Missouri Valley Conference softball tournament but that won’t be an advantage if history is any indication. In hopes of rewarding regular season success the conference a few years ago went to a single elimination format that gave the top two seeds byes into the semifinal round but it has rarely been an advantage.

Drake coach Rich Calvert says every year they try to bring that up, but he says the league is so balanced that the one and two seeds haven’t had the success you might think. The Bulldogs are seeded third and will open Thursday night against the winner of the game between Bradley and Missouri State.

Regular season champ U.N.I. is the top seed while Illinois State is seeded second. He says the last five or six years, the one or two seed gets into the championship game, but has lost. Calvert says the other team is usually riding a win streak or a hot pitcher and the best team does not always win.

Calvert says while the new single elimination format means the top seed only needs to win two games to be crowned champion it also means there is no margain for error. He says that makes every pitch vital as you don’t have the losers bracket to come back in if you have a bad game.

U.N.I. will play Friday at Noon. The tournament will be held in Carbondale, Illinois.

The Luther College softball team will try to win a third straight Iowa Conference softball tournament title this week and if they do a big reason will be the play of catcher Kelsey Kettelson. The senior from St. Ansgar is batting.366, leads the team in RBI’s with 41 and handles a pitching staff that has posted an earned run average of under two. Luther is 34-4 on the season.

Kettleson says they decided they can’t think about the rankings, they just have to go out and if they win the tournament that will be good.

Kettelson says the Iowa Conference is strong from top to bottom and will not be easy to win it even though Luther is hosting the tournament. “And that’s a lot of the fun about playing in the Iowa Conference for softball, we’re one of the best conferences in the nations, and every game is a big one,” She says.

Kettelson says the Norse entered the season with high expectations and they have come a long way, ending the season strong winning the conference. Kettelson says the Norse are a confident group that is playing great ball right now.

The Iowa Conference tournament begins Thursday in Decorah.

By Darin Svenson, KDEC, Decorah

The Central softball team is looking forward to playing a home game. The Dutch are 25-5 overall but have only played four games at home heading into Wednesday’s doubleheader against Cornell.

Central coach George Wares says they love to play at home and tend to get good crowds with good weather. The Dutch have won eight straight games since dropping both ends of a doubleheader against Luther. Ware says they have been pretty consistent all season, and aren’t doing a whole lot different.

Central is in second place in the Iowa Conference race with a 6-2 record and Wares says the league is tough from top to bottom. He says it looks like Luther is in a very good position and the conference tournament could be more wide open this year.

It has been a busy couple of weeks for the Luther College softball team but the way they are playing they don’t seem to mind. The Norse have won 11 of their last 12 games and sit at the top of the Iowa Conference race after a Tuesday doubleheader sweep of Coe College.

Luther coach Renae Hartl says she’s questioned how many games they have been playing, but she says you sometimes don’t get to play a lot of games with the Iowa weather. The Norse are an experienced team but the lone exception is the pitching staff. Sophomore Becca Girvan leads the staff after posting a 16-2 record last season.

Hartl says they have three freshmen on the staff too and they have given them some quality innings. Hartl says a veteran team is a big plus for a young pitching staff. “It’s really nice to have a very experienced mature lineup,” Hartl says. She says that experience helps produce runs to support the young pitching staff.

Luther visits St. Mary’s of Minnesota on Thursday for a non-conference matchup.

It has been a smooth transition for first year softball coach Chris Nachtigall at Northwestern College. The Raiders are 16-9 overall and 4-0 in the Great Plains Athletic Conference heading into Wednesday’s matchup with Morningside.

“We obvoiusly have some getting used to each other that we still have to do, but I feel like they’ve bought into what we want to do, and on the field they are playing some decent softball,” Nachtigall says. He says the team is still getting used to his coaching style, but says they are a good group that has done really well.

Nachtigall says a good start has helped the players “buy into” his style of coaching. “When you start to have some success on the field then they see that and they see that their hard work is paying off, and that helps,” Nachtigall.

Nachtigall says he has told his players it is not how they start, but how they finish, and that’s what they try to do in every game and practice. He says that idea has helped them pull out some close games.

Nachtigall says a quick start has helped his team gain confidence, as one of the goals was to come out and play well at the start and finish strong at the end of the season.