Coe College will host the Iowa Conference softball tournament beginning Friday in Cedar Rapids. The Kohawks are the top seed and earned the right to host after winning the regular season title. Luther College is the second seed. “I’m excited about the two seed, I think that it’ll be fun to go down there — especially when you’ve got 13 newcomers on your team, to go there and kind of get your feet wet with the atmosphere of the conference tournament and be able to sit there and watch Central and B-V play,” Luther coach Renae Hartl says.
The Norse have won this tournament three times in the last four years and Hartl says the key is playing without pressure. Hartl says the team that goes in thinking that they have to win, probably won’t play well. Luther is 27-6 overall and Hartl feels her team is peaking at the right time.
“We’ve really worked all year offensively to work up to this point in the season, and I feel like we have this aggressive approach at the plate this year, yet with this unbelievable strike zone,” Harl says.
The Iowa Conference is considered one of the best in all of division three and Central coach George Wares has said the league tournament is tougher than many NCAA regionals. “Coming into league play our conference has a 72% winning percentage against outside competition, so that shows quite a bit about the strength of the conference from top to bottom,” Wares says.
Wares says all the teams in the tournament are playing for seeding or trying to get into the postseason tournament and that competition prepares teams for play down the road. Central is the third seed.