Contact: Chassidy Holloway, Associate Executive Director, holloway@midwestconference.org
 
GRINNELL, Iowa – The 2023 Midwest Conference (MWC) Softball Tournament begins Friday, May 12, and continues through Saturday, May 13, at the Jessica Kamp Softball Field on the campus of Illinois College.
 
The double-elimination event will feature the league’s top four teams competing for the tournament title and the automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament.
 
The action starts Friday with four games scheduled. At 10:00 a.m., No. 2 Grinnell College will take on No. 3 Lake Forest College, followed by No. 1 Illinois College and No. 4 Cornell College at noon. The losers of the first two games will square off at 2:00 p.m. before the two winners meet at 4:00 p.m. 
 
On Saturday, the winner of game three and the loser of game four will open the day at 10:00 a.m. The Championship game is scheduled for noon to feature the winner of game four and the winner of game five. If necessary, game seven will start at 2:00 p.m.
 
Illinois College and Grinnell College finished the regular season as MWC Softball Co-Champions to earn the number one and number two seeds, respectively. Both teams went 15-1 in MWC play, splitting wins against each other to set up a tiebreaker situation to determine the host of the season-culminating tournament.
 
This year’s title makes the second program crown in three seasons for the Lady Blues, who are the defending two-time MWC Tournament Champions. Illinois College is currently 23-14-1 overall.
 
The Pioneers set school records in league and overall (26-12) victories this season en route to their program’s first MWC championship. Grinnell makes its fourth postseason tournament appearance in the last five years.
 
Lake Forest College completed the regular season on a nine-game win streak, finishing third in the MWC standings with a 12-4 league record (25-12-1 overall). The Foresters have made appearances in every MWC Softball postseason tournament since 2000, including ten tournament title wins.
 
Cornell College makes its first MWC Tournament appearance since 2018, where they won the title as the four seed. This season, the Rams went 9-7 in league play (14-20 overall) to qualify for this year’s postseason.

For all updates on the tournament, visit the 2023 MWC Softball Tournament page. 

The full weekend schedule can be found below: 

Friday, May 12

Game 1	10:00 a.m.	No. 2 Grinnell College vs. No. 3 Lake Forest College
Game 2	12:00 p.m.	No. 1 Illinois College vs. No. 4 Cornell College
Game 3	2:00 p.m.	Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2
Game 4	4:00 p.m.	Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2

Saturday, May 13

Game 5	10:00 a.m.	Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4
Game 6	12:00 p.m.	Championship (Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5)
Game 7	2:00 p.m.	2nd Championship Game (if necessary)