GREENVILLE, S.C. – The National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) released its 2022 Softball World Series tournament field on Wednesday night as Mid-America Christian will look to defend its 2021 National Championship as the top seed.
The 2022 NCCAA Softball World Series will be played at the Kansas City Royals Urban Youth Academy in Kansas City, Mo. from May 17-19.
The Evangels were named the No. 1 seed after finishing the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament with a 32-22 overall record and earned the automatic bid from the Central Region after possessing the highest Power Rating of any team in the tournament field at 4.419.
Mid-America Christian will enter the tournament featuring four NCCAA All-Central Region honorees, headlined by the Central Region Player of the Year in redshirt freshman pitcher Rachel Eggleston. At the conclusion of SAC Tournament play, Eggleston led the MACU pitching staff with a 16-10 record in the circle and a team-best 2.95 earned run average. The Kiowa, Okla. native also just barely sits outside the program's top five in single-season strikeouts at 113 and by issuing only 26 walks, Eggleston currently holds the second-highest strikeout-to-walk ratio in program history (4.34), only behind last year's Central Region Player of the Year and First Team All-American Katie Long (4.62).
Junior outfielders Cailey Parsells and Rachel Humburg as well as junior shortstop Mikaylee Allen were also selected to the NCCAA All-Region Team.
Last season, Mid-America Christian won the program's first ever NCCAA National Championship after a dominant run through the tournament field in Easley, S.C. from May 18-20, 2021. After picking up a 7-0 shutout win over Trinity Baptist (Fla.) and a pair of 8-0 victories over Oakland City (Ind.) and Carolina (S.C.), the Evangels won an absolute thriller over Concordia-Ann Arbor (Mich.) in the championship game.
In that win, Camenda Osborn and Mikaylee Allen smacked solo home runs in the third inning to take a 2-1 lead. After being tied at two going into extras, Allen made one of the biggest plays of the game in the top of the eighth when she fielded a one-hopper toward the hole at third and fired a ball into Osborn at home plate to get the go-ahead run tagged out on the fielder's choice.
Allen came up clutch for MACU in the bottom half of that eighth inning when she scored the walk-off run from third on a suicide squeeze bunt single by Olivia Roberts to seal the 3-2 victory.
Mid-America Christian will face some familiar competition in Pool Play of this year's championships as the Evangels will be re-matched against No. 8 seed Trinity Baptist at noon on Tuesday, May 17 before returning to the field at 4:30 p.m. to take on No. 5 seed Oakland City.
The Evangels will wrap-up pool play on Wednesday, May 18 as MACU will take on Sooner Athletic Conference rival No. 4 seed Southwestern Christian (Okla.) at 10 a.m. If the Evangels advance out of pool play, they will play in one of the two semifinal games scheduled for 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
The championship game will be played on Thursday, May 19 and is slated for a 1 p.m. start.
For more information, see the link below.
2022 NCCAA Softball World Series
