USI’s softball team has been having a fairytale season and has recently had a win streak of 12 games.
The team is ranked at 15 in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division II Top 25 Poll and fourth in the second installment of the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Poll, on their way to hopefully win a championship.
There weren’t many new players added to the team this season, but the team has been playing like brand new. Pitcher and second basemen junior, Sarah Owens said she noticed, compared to the previous two seasons, the team has made big changes.
“I feel like it’s kind of a Cinderella story for us,” Owens said. “The last two years we have most of the same players still, but they’re in different positions which make a whole different team.”
Junior outfielder Toni Braun said she agrees with Owens about how the team has really transformed.
“It’s been incredible, once you can base it off of your previous years, it’s like a Cinderella story,” she said. “We only lost four seniors last year, but it feels like a completely different atmosphere.”
Their conference has a lot of tough teams to beat, but that hasn’t slowed down the Eagles. There are challenges when it comes to preparing for games during conference, but the girls know they have the ability to go out and win games.
“I would say having to adjust to the pitching so fast (is the hardest part of preparing),” Owens said. “You don’t get to see them before hand and you just kind of have to go into it knowing what you did last year.”
Knowing that the team is in a strong conference makes the girls aware that they need to be thoroughly prepared for each game. Sophomore infielder, Lexi Reese said the toughest part is being prepared for conference games.
“I think that our conference is just so good from top to bottom you never want to take anyone for granted,” she said. “There were a couple games at the beginning, that were our first conference games and I don’t know if we were really ready because we dropped both of them.”
They haven’t been dropping any games lately and are continuing to play as the team they know they can. Having confidence and a good mindset is what Braun said is the most important part of their game.
“We all physically know how to do what we need to do, it’s more mental preparation,” she said. “If something gets us down it’s going to be mental because once we start getting mentally out of the loop then we physically start having troubles.”
While the team has been moving up in the rankings due to its performance, the Eagles don’t focus so much on where they stand compared to other teams, but more about winning the games they need to.
“We don’t so much focus on you know ‘oh we’re 15 let just try to get 14 or 13,’ it’s not so much what can we be ranked next week,” Braun said. “It’s more what games can we win? What game do we have coming up? If sweeping that weekend moves us up then awesome.”
But increasing their ranking is still important to the team in hopes of making it to the championship.
“We found out we were fourth in the region, but we want to be third and we are tied for second in the conference with Indianapolis,” Owens said. “Our focus is to go 4-0 over this weekend, that way it saves us in case they lose one game then we would have the advantage over them.”
The team has grown close and they also have developed a few game day rituals which help them to prepare.
“We always wear our socks because we have been doing so well and we always say a prayer. Then we do a mosh pit with Toni who gets in the middle and we push her around and scream,” Reese said.
Every girl on the team has a role to play and in order to be a successful team they all need to be aware of what they bring to the table. Owens said the leadership aspect of the team can be helpful to younger players.
“I think everyone each has their own leadership role and they kind of just go into it,” she said. “You have this role on your team and to continue to be successful we have to be able to do that, we are like best friends so basically we like to help each other.”