One day after a federal lawsuit by four Samford players put the fate of this year’s Southern Conference softball tournament in doubt, conference commissioner John Iamarino said the situation seemed to be over.
“As of first pitch today, I spoke with our attorney and no hearing had been held or scheduled for today,” Iamarino said Thursday while watching the early session of the tournament at Jim Frost Stadium.
Earlier in the week, the four seniors for the Birmingham team filed a Title IX lawsuit against the conference for scaling back the softball tournament to four teams this season.
Late Wednesday, a federal judge denied their request to issue an injunction and force the conference to expand the tournament to an eight-team format.
In early 2009, the SoCon approved a variety of measures to reduce expenses in the face of school budget cuts and the weakened economy. Among those efforts was reducing conference tournaments to four teams for several nonrevenue sports, including softball.