Bracket

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Cal State San Marcos softball team was awarded the fifth seed for the NAIA Softball National Championship and will take on fourth-seeded Oklahoma City in its opening round game on Friday, May 24 at 1:00 p.m. PDT.

The game will serve as a rematch of last year's national semifinal game when OCU eliminated CSUSM, 1-0, in nine innings. The Stars eventually finished as national runners-up to Shorter (Ga.).

The winner of CSUSM-OCU will have Saturday and Sunday off.  The CSUSM-OCU victor will face the winner of No. 1 Concordia (Calif.) and the play-in game winner on Monday, May 27 at 1:00 p.m. PDT. No. 8 Reinhardt (Ga.) and No. 9 Saint Xavier (Ill.) will meet in the play-in game with the winner moving on to face Concordia.

The loser of CSUSM-OCU will face the loser of Reinhardt-Saint Xavier on Saturday, May 25 at 7:00 a.m. PDT in an elimination game.

CSUSM (43-10) qualified for the final site of the NAIA tournament by taking down Marian (Ind.), 4-0, in the championship of the Park (Mo.) Bracket in the NAIA Opening Round.

The 10-team tournament will be held at South Commons Softball Complex. The National Championship is a double-elimination tournament with the winner being crowned on May 30.

There will be up to 19 games played during the seven-day span on the championship stadium field. This format is a first in the 33-year history of the event. Most recently from 2005-12, the championship format included pool play and pool play champions advanced to double-elimination action.

The Cougars have been in the national semifinals in each of the last two seasons.