Staying close to No. 3

Mastodon tracks

Jessica Hall gave up only three hits to IPFW and the UCLA softball team defeated the Mastodons 8-0 on Saturday to end IPFW's season at the NCAA Regional in Louisville, Ky.Saturday

Mastodons to regionals

IPFW senior Theresa McHugh and freshman Rachel Dincoff have earned spots at the NCAA East Region Preliminary Championships, which begins May 23 in Greensboro, N.C.May 16, 2013

Softball players honored

IPFW junior Ashleigh Bousquet and sophomore Larissa Franklin were named to the Summit League Softball Academic All-League team, as voted on by the schools’ faculty athletics representatives and sports information directors.May 15, 2013

By now, the Summit League regular season championship has been conceded to Oakland, which has lost once in 14 league games, four more to go.

IUPUI, meanwhile, sits in second place with four losses.

IPFW (16-9, 9-5) is in fourth place as the Mastodons face fifth-place South Dakota State (17-9, 9-6) tonight at Memorial Coliseum.

Whether IPFW finishes fourth or fifth in the final league standings doesn't mean much, considering that the Nos. 4 and 5 spots will play each other in the opening round of the Summit League tournament the first week of March in Sioux Falls, S.D.

The trick is getting at least the No. 3 seed, which will be paired in the same bracket as the second-place team, and away from Oakland, which is where Nos. 4 and 5 are.

With a three-game winning streak, SDSU comes in as the second-hottest team in the league. Oral Roberts (14-14, 11-5) is in third place and has won five in a row.

In the first meeting in Brookings, S.D., the Mastodons were routed, 87-52.