INDIANAPOLIS, IND. – The University of Missouri-St. Louis softball team has officially been awarded its sixth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament as the 2018 bracket was unveiled on Monday morning.
 
The Tritons are the No. 6 seed in the Midwest Region and will travel to Springfield, Ill., where No. 2 seed Illinois Springfield will host one of two sub-regionals. UMSL will open tournament play against No. 3 seed McKendree on Thursday, while No. 7 seed Saginaw Valley State will face the host Prairie Stars in the other first round game. All games will be played at the Land of Lincoln Softball Complex.
 
The NCAA Midwest Regional Tournament is broken up into a pair of four-team "sub-regional" double-elimination brackets, which are hosted at separate sites. The other four-team bracket will be played at No. 1 seed Grand Valley State and features No. 4 seed Indianapolis, No. 5 seed Southern Indiana and No. 8 seed Hillsdale.
 
The winners of both sub-regionals will meet in the Midwest Super Regional on May 17-18. That will be a three-game series at a site to be determined. Each of the eight regional winners across the country will then meet at the NCAA Championships May 24-28 at the Moyer Sports Complex in Salem, Virginia.
 
UMSL and McKendree split a doubleheader in the GLVC opener in St. Louis, Mo., on March 10. The Bearcats won game one, 10-2, while the Tritons took game two, 7-5.
 
UMSL is 1-2 against Illinois Springfield, have lost both contests during the GLVC regular season, while the Tritons defeated the top-seeded Prairie Stars, 8-0, in the GLVC Tournament last weekend.
 
UMSL posted 7-1 and 7-0 wins over Saginaw Valley State on March 9 in St. Louis in the Tritons' home opener.
 
In addition to it being the program's sixth straight tournament appearance, it is also the program's eighth overall.
 
Here is the listing of games this weekend in Springfield, Ill.:
 
Thursday, May 10
Game 1 - #3 McKendree (38-16) vs. #6 Missouri-St. Louis (33-22), 11 a.m.
Game 2 - #2 Illinois Springfield (36-16) vs. #7 Saginaw Valley (28-25), 1:30 p.m.
 
Friday, May 11
Game 3 - Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2, 11:00 a.m.
Game 4 - Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2, 1:30 p.m.
Game 5 - Loser of Game 3 vs. Winner of Game 4, 4:00 p.m.
 
Saturday, May 12
Game 6 (Championship game) - Winner of Game 3 vs. Winner of Game 5, 11:00 a.m.
Game 7 (Championship game, if necessary) - Same teams as above, 1:30 p.m.