By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
April 30, 2004
The Gulf South Conference's top eight softball teams will open play today in the GSC softball tournament at Northeast Park.
Four teams from both the GSC's East and West divisions qualified for the double-elimination tournament, which runs through Sunday. The tournament begins today at 11 a.m. with two games. Alabama Huntsville (44-7, 22-0 GSC), the the East Division champion for the fifth straight year, will meet West No. 4 seed Southern Arkansas (23-17, 13-10 GSC), and West No. 2 seed Delta State (34-14, 16-7 GSC) takes on East No. 3 seed Valdosta State (29-33, 11-11 GSC) at the same time.
Later today, two more games will begin at 2 p.m. West division champ Arkansas-Monticello (34-11, 19-5 GSC) will play East No. 4 seed Lincoln Memorial (31-25, 11-12 GSC), while East runner-up West Florida (31-18, 17-5 GSC) takes on West No. 3 seed Henderson State (32-11, 15-9 GSC).
Winners will play a second game tonight, and losers will resume play on Saturday morning.
While division champs Alabama-Huntsville and Arkansas-Monticello enter the tournament as the favorites, they are by no means a lock for Sunday's championship game. Since beginning the season 9-10 overall and 0-8 in the conference, Henderson State has won 23 of its last 24 games and rides a 19-game winning streak into the tournament. HSU's most recent loss, a 7-3 setback against Central Arkansas, came nearly seven weeks ago on March 13.
Though West Florida enters the tournament a loser in three straight games all to Alabama-Huntsville in the final series of the regular season the Argonauts won 10 of 11 beforehand and were in position to take the East Division championship in the season's final weekend.
Delta State may be the conference tournament's biggest question mark. The Lady Statesmen have won eight in a row, but prior to the winning streak, they lost six of seven.