Bracket | Championship Central
NORFOLK, Va., May 6, 2021 – The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and Norfolk State will host the 2021 Softball Championship on Thursday, May 13 through Saturday, May 15 at the NSU Softball Field. The Morgan State Bears and the North Carolina A&T State Aggies will enter tournament play as the No. 1 seeds from their respective divisions.
Only the top two teams from each division will compete in the double-elimination tournament, which offers a chance to earn the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Division I Softball Championship.
Morgan State (14-5 MEAC) will be looking to win the first MEAC softball championship in school history after finishing 14-5 in league play this season under head coach Larry Hineline. The Bears finished the regular season atop the standings in the Northern Division for the first time since 2018. Morgan State led the MEAC with the most regular-season wins (21) to guarantee the program a winning season.
Norfolk State (12-7 MEAC) is the No. 2 seed from the Northern Division. The Spartans made history during the 2019 regular season by winning their first Northern Division title in school history, and this season, they were second in the MEAC with 19 wins and guarantee themselves a winning season for the fifth time in Division I.
North Carolina A&T State (10-6 MEAC) won its first Southern Division title in 13 years, doing so this year under head coach Patti Raduenz, who took over the Lady Aggies in July 2019. The Lady Aggies, like all four teams in the field, will be looking for the first MEAC Softball Championship in program history.
North Carolina Central (9-7 MEAC) earned its way to the No. 2 seed in the Southern Division following a four-game sweep of South Carolina State.
The 2021 MEAC Softball Championship begins Thursday, May 13 at 12 p.m., when North Carolina A&T State will battle host Norfolk State, while Morgan State and North Carolina Central face each other at 3 p.m. to close out the opening day of play.
The winner of the North Carolina A&T/Norfolk State game will face the winner of the Morgan State/North Carolina Central game on Friday, May 14 at 12 p.m. The elimination round begins Friday at 3 p.m., followed by final losers’ bracket game at 6 p.m.
The winner of the 12 p.m. contest will advance to Saturday’s championship game, while the loser will play in the elimination game on Friday evening at 6 p.m. The winner of the 6 p.m. elimination game will advance to the championship game.
The championship game is set for Saturday, May 15, beginning at 12 p.m., and will be broadcast live on FloSoftball, with the team from the winners’ bracket needing only one win to claim the championship trophy. If the team that comes out of the losers’ bracket wins the first game on Saturday, a second game will be played at a time to be determined later.