May 6, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

Michigan and Northwestern each won its final game of the year to share the Big Ten Championship and closed out the conference season with matching 18-2 records. NU will host this week's 2008 Big Ten Softball Tournament which will take place on May 8-10 at Sharon J. Drysdale Field.

After all tiebreakers between Michigan and Northwestern came out equal, the Wildcats won the official coin flip which was conducted by Big Ten Conference officials to determine this year's host. This is the first time in the tournament's history that the top-seeded team has been decided by a coin flip.  The Wildcats and Wolverines are the top two seeds while Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State and Ohio State make up the rest of the field.

This is the first Big Ten regular season title for Michigan since the 2005 season, the same year the Wolverines won the national championship. This also marks the first conference crown for Northwestern since 2006. The Wolverines have won eight Tournament titles, with the last coming in 2006. Third-seeded Iowa finished the conference season with a 14-6 mark and will be in search of its third Big Ten Tournament title.  Northwestern joins three other teams with one Tournament title each (Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State).

The tournament will open with No. 2 Michigan facing No. 7 Michigan State on Thursday, May 8 at 2 p.m. No. 1 Northwestern and No. 8 Ohio State will follow in Game 2, beginning at 4:30 p.m.  Friday's action will begin at 9 a.m. as No. 3 Iowa and No. 6 Illinois hit the field. No. 4 Minnesota will then take on No. 5 Purdue at 11:30 a.m. Semifinal games will begin at 2 p.m. on Friday, with the championship scheduled for Saturday at Noon.