Indiana softball has been 'on mission' to reach fourth straight NCAA regional

Indiana softball has been 'on mission' to reach fourth straight NCAA regional

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana softball coach Shonda Stanton delivered her mission statement in August for the coming season to her team.

Forty and four, she told them: 40-plus wins, and a top-four seed in the Big Ten Tournament.

For a program with just two NCAA Tournament appearances in the 22 years before Stanton arrived in Bloomington, such expectations would once have seemed ambitious to the point of unrealistic. Not anymore.

“As a coach,” Stanton said during a Zoom call Wednesday morning, “I didn’t blink an eye. … That was a realistic expectation, and our group went to work on that.”

Having realized those preseason aims already, Stanton’s Indiana team travels to Knoxville this weekend, to compete in Tennessee’s regional pod. The Hoosiers (42-14) open play against No. 7 Virginia at 8 p.m. Friday.

It marks the Hoosiers’ fourth straight regional appearance, and their third 40-win season in four years. And it reflects a culture Stanton said now entrenched into her locker room, one where winning habits — and the success that follows — have become self-perpetuating.

“This group was on brand,” she said. “They were on mission. They’re refreshing.”

IU set the tone for its season in its first half, winning 16 of its first 20 games. The Hoosiers swept Illinois, Maryland and Purdue, won a series at Michigan and beat another NCAA team, Washington, 9-2 in the conference tournament. They were one of just four Big Ten teams to finish with 17 or more league wins, and they finished with 18 wins at home, tied for second most in the conference.

Three players — Taylor Hess, Aubree Hooks and Ella Troutt — finished with more than 10 wins. And as a team, IU finished second in the Big Ten in hits, runs scored and OPS, as well as third in slugging.

Now, they prepare for another regional trip, an experience that once might have seemed foreign to Indiana softball but has become familiar to the point of instinct in Bloomington.