GRAND FORKS, N.D. — The University of North Dakota baseball team will be the No. 7 seed at the upcoming Great West Conference Tournament and play No. 2 seed Northern Colorado in the opening round on Tuesday at Kraft Field. The Fighting Sioux (10-33, 7-17 GWC) and Bears (23-30, 19-7 GWC) will play the final game of day-one action at 7 p.m.

The tournament will be a double-elimination format, which is a change from the inaugural tournament in 2010 that featured pool play. UND went 1-2 in that format a season ago as the No. 5 seed.

The Sioux and Bears met during the regular season in a four-game series that UNC swept in Greeley, Colo., but two of the games were decided by just one run and the teams combined for 107 runs in one of the most offensive-laden series of the regular season in Great West play.

Reigning GWC champion Utah Valley (30-22, 22-2 GWC) successfully defended its 2010 regular season title and will be the No. 1 seed at the tournament for the second straight season. The Wolverines will play No. 8 seed Chicago State (9-39, 4-19 GWC) in the first game of the event at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

No. 4 seed New York Tech (17-30, 13-12 GWC) will take on east coast rival and No. 5 seed New Jersey Institute of Technology (19-33, 12-16 GWC) in game two at 1 p.m. The third game of the opening round will feature No. 3 seed Houston Baptist (18-38, 16-12 GWC) and No. 6 seed Texas-Pan American (21-29, 10-18 GWC). The Broncs have been in Grand Forks since Wednesday and split a four-game series with the Sioux to conclude their regular season play.

The teams will all participate in practices on Monday on the eve of the tournament and selected players from all eight teams will participate in a youth clinic to be held at Kraft Field following those sessions from 4:30-6 p.m.

– Go Sioux –