Never leave anything to chance. Not when there’s the possibility to take the bat out of the hands of a selection committee and not have to play a waiting game.

Hawaii Pacific did just that yesterday after sweeping Hawaii-Hilo 2-1 and 9-3 in the Pacific West Conference softball finale for the Sea Warriors. The postgame festivities at Howard Okita Field included four HPU seniors taking individual victory laps in a golf cart driven by coach Bryan Nakasone and the team celebrating the PacWest’s automatic bid into the NCAA Division II championship tournament later this month.

No. 15 HPU (37-10), the defending national champion, finished tied with Dixie State atop the PacWest standings at 23-5 but owns the tiebreaker over the Red Storm. The Sea Warriors, ranked second in the region, will learn whether they will host a regional when the 64-team NCAA field is announced next Sunday.

"It feels really good; it’s a big relief knowing we have the automatic (berth)," said Nakasone, his team winning its fifth consecutive conference title. "We’re ranked pretty high and felt that whatever happened today we couldn’t be hurt. But our goal was to win both.

"I feel good that we’ll host, but stranger things have happened. If they stick to the rules, the top two teams will host. But it’s also a matter of sending three teams to Hawaii or sending us out. We may have to go."

Dixie State, ranked sixth in the region, is expected to receive an at-large berth. Hawaii-Hilo (26-14, 19-7 ) is ninth in the region — the top eight teams advance — and concludes the regular season with today’s doubleheader against Chaminade at Central Oahu Regional Park.

The final regional rankings will be released Wednesday and "we have an outside chance," first-year Vulcans coach Jaime Wallin said. "It’s important for us to win both (against Chaminade). We’ll see if we’re in there Wednesday with the last rankings."

All of the scoring in yesterday’s opener came in the first tinning. Bryanna Hardy singled in Tessa Truong from second to give the Vulcans a 1-0 lead.

The Sea Warriors answered in the bottom half of the inning, using two hits and two UHH errors for what would be the final score. Breanne Patton (23-2) scattered five hits and struck out four.

The scoring again came early for the Sea Warriors in the second game, as HPU — the designated visitor — sent 12 batters to the plate in scoring eight on three hits, a wild pitch and an error.

Melissa Awa’s one-out single down the right-field line drove in two and Maile Kim blasted the first pitch some 210 feet over the left-center fence for her team-high seventh homer of the year and HPU’s second grand slam of the season.

The Vulcans avoided a mercy-rule-shortened game when picking up two runs on RBI singles by Amanda Tellez and Truong in the fourth. Hilo cut it to 8-3 in the fifth when Aisha Sueda drove in Angeline Cruz with a sharp hit to right.

The Vulcans got no closer. The Sea Warriors closed out the scoring with a run in the sixth, a two-out single to right-center by Celina Garces that drove in Kim.

"Maile’s been hitting the ball well all year," Nakasone said of Kim. "She was due.

"It’s very gratifying for having such a young team to see the kids coming around and putting the pieces together."