VALLEY CITY, N.D. (VCSUVikings.com)- The Valley City State softball team begins on Friday what it hopes will be a long postseason run.
The Vikings are set to open the North Star Athletic Association Softball Championships as the No. 2 seed and face No. 7 Presentation College at 10:30 a.m. Friday in Aberdeen, S.D. The 8-team, double-elimination tournament will run Friday, Saturday, Sunday and potentially Monday at the Players Softball Complex in Aberdeen, S.D.
Live stats for all games during the tournament will be available at: http://www.dakstats.com/WebSync/Pages/Tournament/TournamentPage.aspx?association=10&sg=WBA&tour=2486
Valley City State University is the top team in the “Navy Bracket”, which also includes No. 3 Dickinson State, No. 6 Waldorf University and No. 7 Presentation College. The “Gold Bracket” features top seed University of Jamestown, No. 4 Bellevue University, No. 5 Dakota State and No. 8 Mayville State. Each four-team bracket plays a double-elimination tournament. The winners of each bracket meet in a best-of-three championship series. The overall winner of the tournament earns the conference’s automatic bid into the NAIA National Tournament.
University of Jamestown is ranked No. 15 in the latest NAIA Top 25 Poll and is a near-lock to make the 40-team national tournament as an at-large team regardless of how the conference tournament plays out. Valley City State, which is ranked No. 29 in the latest poll, is squarely on the bubble to receive an at-large bid to nationals. Two years ago Valley City State finished the season at No. 34 and just missed the national tournament with the final at-large bid going to the No. 31 team. This year’s final poll will be released May 8, with national qualifiers announced shortly after.
Ideally, the Vikings would just take their future out of the national raters’ hands by winning the NSAA Championship this weekend in Aberdeen. VCSU has certainly proven itself capable, posting a 37-10 overall record (three wins away from tying the school record) and a 20-5 mark in conference. The Vikings were 3-2 this year against top seed Jamestown, including a 2-1 record in conference games.
Valley City State enters the conference tournament on an eight-game winning streak, sweeping the last two weekends of conference play. They’ve played well in pretty much every facet of the game this season. As a team, VCSU is batting .358, has a .964 fielding percentage and is allowing just 3.3 runs per game while scoring 6.1 per game. The Vikings rank sixth in the nation in batting average (.358) and are third in hits per game (10.7).
Freshman shortstop Joelle Aiello has been on a tear offensively as of late, batting .567 out of the leadoff position over the past eight games. She is now batting .445 for the season and has set the VCSU freshman records for hits (73). Five Vikings are batting .350 or better this season. Senior Kelli Moore is hitting .437 and leads the team with 41 RBIs. Senior Kelsey Hamade is batting .389 this season and has scored 39 runs. Junior Voni Culp has a .367 average, and freshman Autumn Perry is batting .565 in limited at bats (13-for-23).
Six other Vikings are batting .300 or better as part of a dangerous lineup. Emily Smith (.340) and Tatum Lundin (.333) have been big run producers for the Vikings, combining for 41 extra-base hits and 65 RBIs.
In the circle Valley City State has three pitchers with ERAs under 2.50. Freshman Nichole Reed is 6-0 with a 1.71 ERA in 57 1/3 innings pitched. Haley Butterfield has a 17-4 record with a 2.17 ERA in 116 1/3 innings. Emily Smith has been excelling as a two-way player, pitching primarily in relief but racking up an 11-2 record with a 2.31 ERA in 106 innings pitched. All three are ranked in the conference’s Top 5 for ERA.
Valley City State has posted a 4-2 record this season against first-round opponent Presentation College. If the Vikings win their opener they would not play again until Saturday at 11 a.m. If VCSU loses to Presentation College, the Vikings would play a loser-out game Friday at 2:30 p.m.