PROVIDENCE, R.I. – DePaul has earned the 2009 BIG EAST regular-season softball title and will be the No. 1 seed at the BIG EAST Softball Championship to be held May 8-10 at Ulmer Stadium in Louisville, Ky.

The eight-team tournament field consists of the league’s top teams based on conference winning percentage.

The Blue Demons (35-11 overall, 18-3 BIG EAST) enter the conference tournament as defending champions after winning last year’s tournament title as the No. 2 seed. This is DePaul’s first appearance as the top seed since 2007. The Blue Demons will face No. 8 seed Seton Hall (24-30-1 overall, 10-14 BIG EAST) in the quarterfinals on May 7 at 12:30 p.m. ET. The Pirates are making their return to the championship for the first time since 2007 when they were also the No. 8 seed losing in the opening round to DePaul. The teams split a regular-season doubleheader with DePaul winning 10-2 in the first game and Seton Hall taking the second 4-3 on April 4.

The No. 2 seed belongs to Notre Dame (38-15 overall, 19-4 BIG EAST) after it split a home doubleheader with Louisville on May 3. The Fighting Irish would have dropped to the third seed had they not won game two 7-4 against the Cardinals. Notre Dame’s last BIG EAST Championship title was in 2006. The Irish will face No. 7 seed St. John’s at 4:00 p.m. on May 7 in game three of the quarterfinals. The Red Storm made their last conference tournament appearance in 2006. This season Notre Dame split a home doubleheader with St. John’s. The Irish took game two 5-4, but lost to the Red Storm in the first game 4-3.

Host and No. 3 seed Louisville will close out the championship’s opening day against No. 6 seed Connecticut at 6:30 p.m. The Cardinals (46-8 overall, 19-5 BIG EAST) are the highest ranked BIG EAST team entering the championship at No. 18 nationally and have been ranked in every poll this season since Feb. 17. The Huskies (29-21 overall, 11-12 BIG EAST) are making their third straight trip to the BIG EAST Championship. Louisville swept Connecticut 1-0 and 6-0 on April 17 in regular-season action.

The tournament’s opening game on will feature No. 4 seed Syracuse against No. 5 seed USF at 10:00 a.m. The Orange (30-20 overall, 12-10 BIG EAST) did not face the Bulls (33-21 overall, 12-10 BIG EAST) this season due to a weather cancellation on April 4. Both programs are regulars at the conference tournament with Syracuse making its fifth straight trip and the Bulls registering their fourth consecutive appearance. USF was the BIG EAST Championship runner up last year after losing to DePaul 4-1 in the finals.

All four quarterfinal contests will be streamed live at www.bigeast.tv. To sign up for a subscription plan, visit www.bigeast.org. All BIG EAST Softball Championship information will also be available at BIG EAST Championship Central.

The semifinal contests on May 8 and championship game on May 9 will be televised by CBS College Sports Network. The first semifinal game will start at 2:30 p.m., followed by the second contest at 5:00 p.m. The title game will begin at 5:00 p.m.