Monday, May 19, 2003

Valpo, the #4 seed, will play #1 seed Oral Roberts on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the first round of the Mid-Continent Conference Baseball Tournament at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla. The double-elimination tournament runs through Saturday. The tournament champion earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The Crusaders (21-31-1, 9-11 Mid-Con) gave regular-season champion ORU (38-18, 19-1 Mid-Con) its only Mid-Con loss during the regular season. Valpo will be making its sixth straight tourney appearance, which ties ORU for the longest streak in the Mid-Con.

Southern Utah, the #2 seed, will open the tournament against #3 seed Western Illinois on Thursday at 3:30 p.m.

On Friday, the losers of the Thursday games will square off at noon. The winners of Thursday's games will meet at 3:30 p.m. The two remaining one-loss teams will conclude the evening with a 7 p.m. contest.

The championship round begins on Saturday at 1 p.m. A 4:30 p.m. second championship game (if necessary) is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.