The University of Illinois Springfield softball team will compete in the NCAA Midwest Regional Tournament this week in St. Louis, Mo. The four-team, double-elimination tournament will take place Thursday through Saturday at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
 
Tournament Field
The NCAA Division II Midwest 2 Regional field is an all-GLVC affair. The teams in the event consists of two-seed Missouri-St. Louis, three-seed Indianapolis, six-seed Truman, and seven-seed Illinois Springfield.
 
UIS will open up play on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. against Missouri-St. Louis, which is ranked No. 24 in the national poll. The winner of that match will play the winner of the Indianapolis/Truman contest at 12 p.m. on Friday. The losers of the opening round contests will face off at 2:30 p.m. on Friday.
 
First-Round Matchup
UIS (27-24) and Missouri-St. Louis (35-17) will be facing each other for the tenth time over the last two seasons, including the sixth time in postseason action. UIS is 5-4 in this span, including a 2-1 record against the Tritons in last year's regional tournament.
 
This season, Missouri-St. Louis has won two of the three games against the Prairie Stars, but UIS has outscored the Tritons by an 11-8 margin. The two teams split the regular season games in Springfield, Ill. with Missouri-St. Louis winning the first game 3-0 and UIS taking game two by a 9-1 margin. Last week, the two teams met in the GLVC Tournament, and Missouri-St. Louis won 4-2.
 
Payton Long has started two of the games against Missouri-St. Louis and has allowed five runs in 12 innings. She has struck out 19 in those games. Jaycee Craver started the other contest and held the Tritons to a .154 batting average.
 
Bree Derhake is batting .444 against Missouri-St. Louis this year, and all four of her hits have been doubles. She has scored three times and driven in one run. Calla Wickenhauser has four RBI and two runs against the Tritons.
 
Missouri-St. Louis leads the all-time series by a 20-10 margin.
 
UIS vs. Rest of the Field
UIS split the season series with Indianapolis (45-14) with both teams winning a defensive battle. Indianapolis won game one by a 2-0 margin, while UIS won the second game in extra innings by a 2-1 margin.
 
Indianapolis, which is ranked 13th nationally, leads the all-time series by a 13-8 margin, but the Prairie Stars have won five out of the last seven games.
 
UIS lost both ends of a doubleheader to Truman State (31-17) by scores of 12-1 and 8-0.
 
Truman leads the all-time series by an 11-4 margin. The two teams have never met before in postseason play.
 
UIS IN NCAA Tournament Play
The UIS Prairie Stars will be making their third all-time NCAA regional appearance, after also earning bids in 2012 and 2018. It is 6-5 all-time in NCAA play.
 
In 2012, UIS lost its opener to Northern Kentucky, but won two straight to bounce back to the championship game. It fell 4-3 for a second time to Northern Kentucky in the first title contest.
 
Last year, UIS won its opener against Saginaw Valley, before a heartbreaking 13-inning loss to Missouri-St. Louis in the second round. UIS defeated Saginaw Valley for a rematch with Missouri-St. Louis, and defeated the Tritons twice, 5-3 and 4-1, for the regional championship. In the NCAA Super Regional, the Prairie Stars lost to eventual national champion Southern Indiana by scores of 2-0 and 3-0.
 
GLVC Stats
UIS is currently seventh among GLVC squad with a 3.36 ERA on the season. Missouri-St. Louis leads the conference with a 2.24 mark, Indianapolis is second with a 2.28 ERA, and Truman State sixth with a 3.03 mark.
 
Offensively, the Prairie Stars are eighth with 4.41 runs a game. Missouri-St. Louis is 14th by scoring 3.02 runs a contest. Indianapolis is second with 5.33 runs a game, and Truman is fourth with just over five runs a contest.
 
All-Conference
UIS had four players earn all-conference honors this year. Natalie Cokel and Morgan Edwards were second-team selections, and Calla Wickenhauser and Payton Long were third-team picks.
 
Senior Class
Six players are wrapping up their UIS careers with this NCAA postseason run. They are Alexa Brown, Morgan Edwards, Jaycee Craver, Madi Torry, Hannah Kain, and Haley Inman. This year's senior class has helped the Prairie Stars win 122 games over the last four seasons, one of the top four-year stretches in program history.
 
Leading the class this week is Edwards and Craver. Edwards is third all-time at UIS in RBI, and ranks in the top-10 in other offensive categories. Craver is the school's all-time wins and strikeout leader on the mound.
 
Up Next
The winner of this week's regional tournament will advance to the NCAA Super Regionals where it will face the winner of the other Midwest Regional Tournament. That field is made up on one-seed Grand Valley State, four-seed Southern Indiana, five-seed Wayne State, and eight-seed Hillsdale.