One more day of soggy weather ended up working in the favor of the Lakeland University softball team this time when rain caused the cancellation of the Muskies' final regular season game Tuesday against Concordia University Wisconsin.

Lakeland and Concordia were scheduled to pick up their suspended game from Saturday, when rain halted the second game of the teams' doubleheader with the Falcons leading 13-0 after two innings. A steady downpour all Tuesday morning and afternoon into the early evening resulted in the cancellation of the game, and also in a twist punched the Muskies' ticket to the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Tournament.

With the cancellation, Lakeland became the last team to clinch a spot in the six-team NACC Tournament. The conference determined before the season that cancellations would count as one-half win and one-half loss in the standings. With that, the Muskies' final 13-10 NACC record-or 13.5-10.5 for tiebreaking purposes-put them in the tourney, one-half game ahead of sixth-seeded Dominican University and Edgewood College, which like Dominican finished with a 13-11 conference mark but was swept by the Stars in the regular season.

Lakeland (18-14 overall) will be the No. 5 seed in the tourney, which opens Thursday at Bedrosian Stadium in Montgomery, Ill. The Muskies will take on fourth-seeded Benedictine University at 2 p.m. in Game 2 of the double-elimination tournament, which runs through Saturday.

The final days of the regular season included plenty of drama for the Muskies, starting Saturday with the scheduled doubleheader against Concordia, which is currently ranked 20th in the latest NFCA/NCAA Division III Top 25 Coaches Poll. A very wet forecast left doubt over whether the games could even be played, but with Lakeland playing Sunday, an umpire shortage on Monday and rains predicted for Tuesday, the call was made to attempt to play. The Senior Day twinbill originally scheduled for a noon start ended up pushed back 2 1/2 hours, finally starting at 2:30 p.m. after nearly two hours of hard work preparing the field after morning rains.

The Falcons won the first game in five innings and jumped out to a huge lead early in the second game, but rain started falling lightly in the second inning and turned into a deluge shortly after the Muskies' made the third out of the bottom of the inning. The rest of the game was suspended there, and with not enough innings completed to be official the game was scheduled to resume on Tuesday, weather permitting.

Lakeland then split two games on Sunday against nationally ranked MSOE, winning the second game thanks to a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning by Hannah Hornsby (Sr.-Brookville, Ind.). That win kept the Muskies' tourney hopes alive, and Lakeland could've punched its ticket Monday if Edgewood had won or lost both games of its doubleheader that day with St. Norbert, but the teams split. That left a dim final day scenario where the Muskies would've had to rally from a 13-run deficit against the NACC regular season champions, while a loss would've put Edgewood in the tourney based on a regular season sweep of Lakeland.

Tuesday's rain left Lakeland's field unplayable. Multiple options were pursued to complete the game, including playing at Concordia or other neighboring NACC schools. In the end, rain falling throughout the day and throughout the area resulted in the game's cancellation.

Lakeland will play in the NACC postseason for the second straight year after competing in the NACC North Division playoff last year, when the conference used a modified format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Muskies' last appearance in the traditional six-team full conference format came in 2016.

2022 NACC Softball Tournament home page
Tournament Bracket