The Division III Softball Committee will recommend a slight change to its championship date formula. If approved by the Division III Championships Committee in September, the 2003 finals would begin on Friday, rather than Thursday, and the "if necessary" championship game would be Tuesday.

"Moving the tournament back one day will mean that all of the participating teams will have one more day to get back to campus and attend class before traveling to the national championship site," said Gretchen Weitbrecht, head softball coach at John Carroll University and chair of the committee.

The committee, which had its annual meeting July 8-10 in Bonita Springs, Florida, also will be recommending automatic qualifiers for 2003. If approved, Pool A would include one additional conference automatic qualifier. The total teams selected from Pool A would be 33, eight from Pool B, and Pool C's at-large bids for other teams from Pool A would be reduced from three in 2002 to two teams next year.

The format for the first-round bracket will be changed in 2003. The loser of game No. 1 will now face the loser of game No. 4, and the other losers' bracket game will pit teams from games No. 2 and 3.

"The losing teams will have a chance to see and play teams from the other half of the bracket, which I think will make the tournament more exciting," Weitbrecht said.

If a first-round tournament with five teams were to be reduced because of weather, the team that won game No. 8 would automatically advance to the finals. For a six-team tournament, the winner of game No. 10 would advance.

For a game that is played to regulation (4.5 or 5 innings) and is halted, regulation shall take precedence, assuming all reasonable efforts have been made to complete the game.

The national committee or its representative will determine what constitutes a reasonable effort.

The committee also is forwarding a championship site recommendation for approval for the 2003 and 2004 finals. Bid packets will be available from Randy L. Buhr at the NCAA for the 2005 and 2006 finals. Bids will be evaluated at the committee's 2003 annual meeting. Potential hosts are reminded to pay attention to the home-run fence requirements set forth in the NCAA rules book, which will be listed in the bid packet information.

In another action, the committee recommended Judy Sherman, director of athletics at Pacific University (Oregon), as the new chair.