As winners of four straight regionals and a pair of sectional plaques in the past three years, the Bradley-Bourbonnais softball team is hoping that 2026 is the year the Boilermakers can break through to their first-ever state appearance.

The path to the Class 4A finals will run through Bradley-Bourbonnais, who is one of the two No. 1 seeds at its host sectional in the bracket that the IHSA released on Wednesday, as well as brackets in the other three classes.

The Boilers will open the postseason as the top seed at the Normal Community Regional, facing No. 8 Richwoods on Tuesday, May 19. A potential regional championship game would come against either No. 4 Normal Community or No. 5 Quincy. The other top teams in the Bradley-Bourbonnais are fellow top seed Belleville East and No. 2 seeds East Moline United and Edwardsville.

Kankakee is seeded fourth in its Class 3A sub-sectional. The Kays open the postseason on Wednesday, May 20 when they face No. 6 Limestone in the Dunlap Regional semifinals. Part of a three-team regional, the winner of that semifinal will face No. 1 Dunlap in the championship game. The Kays feed into a La Salle-Peru Sectional that includes No. 1 Sycamore and No. 2 seeds Ottawa and East Peoria.

The Kankakee area Class 2A field continues to be one of the state’s strongest fields. Defending state champion Beecher is the top seed at the Manteno Regional and will face the winner of (8)Peotone/(9)Herscher in the semifinals on Tuesday, May 19. The other side of the regional features No. 4 Manteno and No. 5 Coal City the following day.

The other regional in that sub-sectional, featured on the opposite side of the Pontiac Sectional, is led by No. 2 Seneca, which will face no. 7 Reed-Custer in the Seneca Regional semifinals on May 19 opposite (3)Wilmington/(6)Bishop McNamara on May 20.

At the time of publication, the current combined record of those nine teams is 123-56. Four of those teams are ranked in the latest Illinois Softball Coaches Association Poll – Beecher (2nd), Seneca (3rd), Wilmington (9th) and Manteno (13th).

Six Class 1A schools, all from the River Valley Conference, will play in the Indian Creek Sectional. Grant Park, seeded second in its sub-sectional, will face the winner of (7)Clifton Central/(10)St. Anne in the Dwight Regional semifinals on May 19. The winner of that will face the winner of the May 20 semifinal between (3)Gardner-South Wilmington/(5)Dwight.

Donovan is on the other side of the sectional, seeded sixth in the sub-sectional and matched up with No. 4 Serena on May 20. Momence is the No. 8 seed, and should it survive a May 18 quarterfinal against No. 9 Illinois Lutheran, would get top seed Ottawa Marquette in a May 19 semifinal.

The area’s three Vermilion Valley Conference schools are all in the LeRoy Sectional. No. 3 Milford/Cissna Park, led by Northwestern commit Addison Lucht, will play (6)Iroquois West/(11)Hoopeston in the Iroquois West Regional semifinals on May 20, with No. 2 Heyworth, No. 7 St. Thomas More and No. 10 Blue Ridge in the same regional.

On the other side of the bracket is No. 4 Watseka, who is also a regional host. The Warriors open up with No. 5 Fisher in the regional semifinals on May 19 and could face either No. 1 LeRoy, No. 8 Armstrong or No. 9 Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley in the championship.