The Western Athletic Conference postseason softball tournament will be held in Las Cruces next May as New Mexico State will host the tourney for the second time in three seasons.
With Fresno State, Hawai'i, Nevada and Brigham Young all leaving WAC softball after this coming season, the odds of any of those schools being awarded the host slot were slim to none.
The field for the 2012 Bayer CropScience Classic at Fresno State in March 2012 is now complete. It appears to be the strongest group of teams in the tourney's history, with four NCAA Tournament qualifiers from 2011 in the field, including a Women's College World Series participant and a Super Regional team.
Fresno State will host California, Oregon, San Diego State, Purdue, UConn and Butler in the tourney March 8-11. Teams also set to play in Fresno during the 2012 season include another NCAA Tournament squad -- Long Beach State -- and Cal Poly.
Winthrop is part of the 2012 field at Hawai'i's annual Spring Fling tournament. Four different WAC teams (Fresno State, Utah State, BYU & Nevada) will all be at the San Diego Classic I next March, joined by co-hosts San Diego State and USD, along with St. Joseph's, Charlotte, Cal Poly, Cal State Northridge and UConn.
BYU and Fresno State will be seeing a lot of each other. Both finished in the RPI Top 40 last season, and could very well be in the same position in 2012 thanks to top notch scheduling. In addition to a 3-game regular season series, the Bulldogs and Cougars will participate in at least three of the same non-conference tournaments full of heavyweights. Each will compete alongside powerful Oklahoma, Arizona and Cal State Fullerton, among others, at the always strong Judi Garman Classic next March. Both BYU and Fresno State will be in the Garman Classic, Cathedral City Classic (widely considered the country's single toughest tourney) and the San Diego Classic I.
Southern Illinois, Robert Morris and Radford will each be a part of Hawai'i's annual Malihini Kipa Aloha Tournament next March. San Jose State will be at the Gaucho Classic March 16-18. And Wisconsin of the Big Ten will play in Reno at the Nevada Classic on the second weekend of March. Stay tuned for further updates.
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