Southland Conference Softball Tie-Breaker Policy
Southland Conference
9.2.4.5 Tournament Seeding. Tournament seeding, 1 through 6, shall be based upon order of regular-season winning percentage in Conference competition, regardless of division. A standard head-to-head tiebreaker shall be utilized.
9.2.4.5.1 Tie-breaker. In the case of a two-way tie in the final standings, position in the tournament bracket shall be determined as follows:
(a) If two teams are tied and they are from different divisions, the winner of the series between the two tied teams shall be the higher seed. If the tying teams from opposing divisions did not play a regular-season Conference series, the tie will be broken beginning with item (c) below and continue through item (f).
(b) If two teams are tied and they are from the same division, the team with an advantage in head-to- head competition shall be the higher seed.
(c) If two teams remain tied, there will be a comparison of overall record or winning percentage against division teams only (up to 15 divisional games).
(d) If two teams remain tied, there will be a *comparison of record against the highest ranked team(s) (based upon Conference winning percentage) in the division and proceeding through in order of divisional finish.
(e) If two teams remain tied, there will be a *comparison of record against the highest ranked team(s) (based upon Conference winning percentage) in the opposite division and proceeding through in order of divisional finish.
(f) If two teams remain tied, the higher seed will be chosen by draw.
(g) If three or more teams are tied, ties among divisional opponents will be broken by using steps (b) through (f) and the head-to-head results will be used to break ties between non-divisional teams. When three or more teams from the same division are tied step (b) will consist of a mini-round robin among those tied teams. At any point during the process of breaking ties among three or more teams that the number of tied teams are reduced to two, head-to-head competition would be used as the primary tiebreaker, followed by steps (c) through (f).
*Note: When comparing against the ‘highest’ ranked team(s) in either division, the comparison will be based upon how tied teams did against all teams in a given placement, rather than a team that wins a tiebreaker at another position. For example, if two teams are tied for fifth and two teams are tied for first, the head-to-head comparison would be how the fifth place teams did against the first place teams combined, and vice versa. [5/14]
9.2.4.6 Tournament Champion. The winner of the Tournament shall be the recipient of the Conference’s NCAA automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Women’s Softball Championship. Other Conference teams may accept invitations to participate in postseason tournaments only when conducted or approved by the NCAA.