CHADRON, Neb. -- April 26, 2016 -- The Chadron State College softball team hopes third time is a charm when it competes in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament in Grand Junction, Colorado, this week.

The Eagles lost their first game, won the second, but were eliminated from the tournament in the third contest each of their previous two adventures in RMAC post-season play—in 2010 and 2014.

The ideal road to the championship in the double-elimination tourney would be four consecutive victories. Four wins and a loss could also do it.

CSC is familiar with its first-round foe, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.  The teams split their four games this past weekend while wrapping up the regular season in Chadron.  The Eagles finished third in the final RMAC standings at 21-11 and the Mountain Lions were sixth at 18-19. They will open the tourney at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Also on the bottom side of the bracket are No. 2 MSU Denver and No. 7 CSU-Pueblo. They will meet at 10:45 a.m. Thursday.

Both teams have been hot. MSUD finished the regular season at 25-9 and a four-game winning skein, including a pair of 2-1 wins over Colorado Mesa last weekend. Before that, the Mesa Mavericks had won 29 games in a row, all in the RMAC. CSU-Pueblo finished 17-19 in the conference, but won its final 11 games.

At 35-3 in the RMAC, Mesa is the top seed and will take on No. 8 Adams State at 3:15 in the final opening-round game.  Defending tournament champion, Regis, finished fourth in the conference at 21-13 this year, and will meet No. 5 Colorado Mines, 17-17, at 1 o'clock.

The first-round losers will tangle Thursday night while the winners will match up Friday morning.

The championship game is slated for 1:15 p.m. Saturday with a second game, if necessary, to follow at 3:30 p.m. All games will be streamed live and free of charge on RMACSPORTS.TV.  KQSK-FM in Chadron, 97.5 on the dial, will broadcast the Eagles' games.

The Eagles, who have won nine of their last 12 games, have a .315 batting average, third best in the conference this spring.  Their .958 fielding percentage is also third and the 3.64 earned run average is second.

The opponents hit .287 against CSC.

Making a trip back to her hometown is Cierra Cosslett, one of the Eagles' two starting pitchers. The Grand Junction native attended Grand Junction High School where she had an ERA of 1.79, accumulating 10 wins in her senior season with 63 strikeouts in 78 innings pitched.

Cosslett and Tayler Hall, the Eagles' starters in the circle, are both graduates of Otero Junior College in La Junta, Colorado, where they played for Ben Garcia, who now skippers the host CMU Mavericks. 

On Tuesday Hall was named the RMAC Pitcher of the Year after finishing the season atop the individual leaderboards for earned run average, opponent batting average, and strikeouts.