The Midwest Collegiate Conference has released the brackets for the opening round of the 2010 MCC Softball Tournament, which begins play this weekend.

Mount Mercy, William Penn and Grand View each will open the tourney hosting three-team pods this weekend, May 1-2. The tourneys will be double elimination in format, and the winners will advance to the conference tournament final four May 8-9 in Ames to be held on the campus of Iowa State University.

The winners of the three-team, double-elimination tourneys will be joined by the highest remaining seed that did not win a pod. Those four teams will participate in next weekend's double-elimination final round, and the final team to emerge from next weekend's finals will receive the MCC's automatic berth to the NAIA National Softball Championships May 20-26 in Decatur, Ala.

The three host schools for the opening pods all earned the right to host by finishing in the top three in the conference in the regular season. Mount Mercy won the conference regular season title with a 19-2 mark in league play, while William Penn was second and Grand View placed third.

Top seeded Mount Mercy will open this weekend hosting #6 seed Iowa Wesleyan and #9 Viterbo. The Mustangs, who have hovered just outside the national top 25 rankings for several weeks, lost just twice in conference play, with one of those losses coming against Iowa Wesleyan earlier this month.

William Penn will host #5 St. Ambrose and #8 Ashford in another pod. The Lady Statesmen also have been near the rankings much of the year. Penn lost six games in conference, with two of those coming against SAU back in March.

Grand View is the third seed and will host #4 Waldorf and #7 Clarke. The Vikings have won eight of their last 11 in league play and won four of five total against the Warriors and Crusaders this year.