With the 2016 regular season in the rearview mirror, the University of Minnesota Duluth will now set its collective sights on the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Softball Tournament, which gets underway this Thursday (April 28) in Sioux Falls, S.D. The 10-team, double-elimination event runs through Saturday at Sherman Park.

The Bulldogs, who are 32-13 overall after closing out the regular season on a 13-2 run, are the tournament's No. 2 seed. They tied Upper Iowa University for second place in the final NSIC standings and won the tie breaker based on having the better record against the team ahead of them (league champion Minnesota State University-Mankato). UMD established a program single-season record for conference wins this spring, going 21-7. The previous standard was set three years ago when the NSIC regular season champion Bulldogs posted a 19-5 mark.

No. 10 Southwest State Minnesota State will face No. 7 University of Sioux Falls and No. 9 Northern State University will take on No. 9 Bemidji State University in the two opening-round games Thursday at 10 a.m. The highest seeded winner from those two matchups will meet UMD at 2 o'clock that afternoon.

The NSIC Tournament champion will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Central Region Tournament, which is set for May 6-8. The field for the 2016 NCAA II Tournament will be announced on ncaa.com on Monday (May 2) at 9 a.m.

NSIC Tournament Bracket

NSIC Tournament Web Site