By ISU Sports Information
NORMAL – The Illinois State softball team has released its 2016 schedule, which will begin in February.
The Redbirds are coming off of a 25-31 season that was highlighted by head coach Melinda Fischer’s 1,000th career win.
“Playing a difficult schedule has been the philosophy in this program,” said Fischer. “It’s huge for 15 underclassmen to play at a very high competitive level in preseason. That will only help us improve heading into Missouri Valley Conference play.”
As has become custom, the Redbirds will face a difficult non-conference schedule in the opening months of the season as they face three opponents that qualified for the Women’s College World Series last season and seven opponents that made the NCAA Tournament. The Redbirds will take on both teams that played for the national championship last season when they face Florida three times and Michigan twice.
ISU opens the season at South Florida and will play the first seven weekends of the year away from Marian Kneer Stadium. Illinois State will play four-plus games at South Florida, Arizona State, LSU, Florida and Louisville. This is the first time in history that ISU will take a full spring break trip when they start at Florida and end in Louisville.
The Redbirds open Missouri Valley Conference play at Missouri State March 19 and will play their home opener March 30 versus DePaul.
For all the traveling ISU will do in the first two months of the season, April is kind to the Redbirds on the travel front. Illinois State will not leave the state, playing 14 games at home, two at Bradley and three at Loyola.
The regular season will culminate at Northern Iowa with a three-game series May 7-8, before the MVC Tournament May 12-14 at Southern Illinois.
“The goal is to improve every time we step on the field,” said Fischer. “We will be an exciting young team and I think we have players who can give us plenty of innings. We lost several games by small margins last season and doing just one thing different could have meant a win, and I think everybody learned from that experience. With four all-conference returning players, that is huge for us. They all lead by example and I know they will all continue to improve their games.”
The schedule can be seen here.
