ESPN: Bulldogs have enjoyed the ride

By Graham Hays
ESPN.com

STORRS, Conn. -- Any softball player who ever treated the sport as more than a hobby daydreamed once or twice of Oklahoma City, home of the Women's College World Series and the only place a Division I player can punctuate her final game with a championship celebration.

Make that the only place a player can go out on top most years.

If softball players don't dream in large numbers of Smithfield, R.I., it's perhaps because many probably don't know it exists. At least not yet. When asked how many out of a random sampling of 10 people in her Colorado hometown would need help locating the New England community that's home to her school (Bryant University), freshman shortstop Aubrey Mable didn't hesitate.

"Ten," she said, grinning.

But the town, just outside of Providence, for the record, could be home to a championship celebration as compelling in origin as anything likely to unfold a month from now in Oklahoma. As teams around the country eye postseason opportunities, Bryant wraps up its regular season with two games at home against Sacred Heart. If it wins both, or even if it loses both and second-place Quinnipiac fails to win at least three of its final four games, all on the road, Bryant will clinch the Northeast Conference regular-season title.

It would do so in just its third season as a Division I program. It would do so in a season in which it was picked by conference coaches to finish in a tie for ninth in a league with just 11 teams. It would do so after winning a total of 19 games, and losing 68, the past two seasons.

And because of NCAA rules, it would celebrate the championship, take a final bow and exit the stage. There would be no encore, no matter how long anyone in the stands holds a lighter in the air.

As a result of the reclassification process to Division I from Division II, a process Bryant began with the 2008-09 academic year, the school isn't eligible for postseason play in softball until 2013. It can't participate in the Northeast Conference tournament or earn the NCAA tournament automatic bid that goes to the winner of that event. Instead of lining up against an Arizona, Texas or UCLA in an NCAA regional, Bryant players would take final exams next week and head home for summer as champions in something of a state of exile.

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