The Great American Conference will be holding its softball and baseball championships starting this weekend.
The Under Armour Softball Championships will be held in Bentonville Friday and Saturday at the Tiger Athletic Complex.
The quarterfinals begin Friday morning at 11 a.m. with Arkansas Tech facing Southern Nazarene. Southern Nazarene, coming off its best conference record as a GAC member at 18-12, bested the Golden Suns in two out of three meetings during the regular season, but the Golden Suns have claimed the last two contested GAC Championships.
The second game of the tournament will feature regular-season champion Southern Arkansas against Arkansas-Monticello. Falling in three of four regular-season meetings to the Muleriders, the Cotton Blossoms earned their first tournament berth since 2017 after ending the regular season on a six-game winning streak.
The third matchup pits Harding against Oklahoma Baptist. The Lady Bisons, as the second seed, secured their first GAC Championship appearance in program history after winning their final 14 games during the regular season.
Concluding the opening day of the tournament, No. 3 Southeastern Oklahoma State will take on No. 6 Ouachita Friday night. While the Savage Storm tallied the most wins during the regular season with 34, the 18-15 Tigers put up their best conference win percentage as a member of the GAC.
The semifinals begin Saturday at 12:30 p.m. with the winners of first two games facing off followed by the winners from Friday's late games. The GAC Sports Network will stream all seven contests.
Tickets for the softball championships will only be available at GreatAmericanConference.com for $10 per day.
The GAC Baseball Championships will be held on four different on-campus locations with the winners of Friday's games traveling to Arkadelphia for the semifinals and finals at Henderson State next Monday and Tuesday.
Top-seeded Arkansas Tech will host Southwestern Oklahoma State after claiming the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2014. While the Bulldogs swept the Wonder Boys last month during the regular season, Arkansas Tech has a 6-0 record against SWOSU in GAC Championship play.
No. 2 SAU, who will play HSU, have won three out of their five meetings against the Reddies this season -- squaring off nine times previously at the GAC Champioinships.
Oklahoma Baptist, which took the regular-season series, faces off against Harding in a rematch of the 2019 title game. NWOSU will play in its first GAC Championship game, hosting UAM.
Hosting teams will provide video coverage of Friday's games while the GAC Sports Network will stream the three contests from Clyde Berry Field.
GAC ANNOUNCES SOFTBALL AWARDS
In the league's final softball weekly awards for the season, the GAC named SAU's Christina Hill as Player of the Week while Harding's Lily Tanski took the Pitcher of the Week nod.
Hill led the Muleriders to a three-game sweep over SWOSU, securing the regular-season title while collecting six hits and driving in five runs. Tanski took home the award for the fifth time after going 2-0 against SEOSU to pick up her league-leading 21st win of the season.
SAU's Landry Newgent was also nominated for the pitching award.
GAC ANNOUNCES BASEBALL AWARDS
The GAC named Arkansas Tech's Trace Maddux as Player of the Week while teammate Patrick Miner and Southern Nazarene's Payne Maga shared the Pitcher of the Week honors in the season's final weekly baseball awards.
Maddux led Tech to a three-game sweep over SEOSU to give the Wonder Boys the top seed in the upcoming championships. Maddux garnered three multi-hit games with two home runs in the series finale while knocking in 10 runs in the entire series.
Miner nearly claimed a no-hitter against SEOSU and struck out 10 batters to finish the season tied for the most wins while leading the league strikeout effort with 89. Maga allowed just two hits in the Crimson Storm's shutout win over OBU and struck out six batters while walking two.
Others nominated include SAU's Austin Baker, Harding's David Butterfield and Logan McCall, NWOSU's Marques Paige, Oklahoma Baptist's Hector Ruvalcaba and Brel Galbreath, and HSU's Spencer Taack.