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SAN ANTONIO — St. Mary’s will open up the 2012 Heartland Conference Softball Tournament as the top seed against No. 4 seed Texas–Permian Basin at 12 p.m. Thursday at St. Edward’s Diane Daniels Field in Austin, Texas.

The Rattlers (32–17), the league’s regular–season conference champion, deferred hosting duties to St. Edward’s due to the lack of a home field with the ongoing construction of the team’s new outdoor sports complex.  

No. 2 seed St. Edward’s and No. 3 seed Texas A&M International will battle in the other opening–round game, set for 3 p.m. Thursday.

The winner of the opening–round games will move on to play each other at 10:30 a.m. Friday, with the Day 1 losers falling into the loser’s bracket with a chance to win their way into the next round of the tournament with a victory.

The championship game is slated for 12 p.m. Saturday.

St. Mary’s conference championship marks its 11th in the past 12 years.

St. Mary’s University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men’s basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men’s golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men’s golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary’s also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary’s student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.stmarytx.edu/athletics.