NIU softball will travel to Carbondale to play four games over two days this weekend in the Coach B Invitational.

During the four game stretch, the Huskies will face Wright State, SIUE, Western Illinois and Southern Illinois. NIU coach Lindsay Chouinard said the team has been working hard, and she would like to see the team turn that hard work into success.

“They’ve had a lot of time to prepare and practice, so I would like to see the girls execute,” Chouinard said. “The team has been working hard and hopefully they can turn that hard work into wins.”

In their last tournament, the Huskies (3-5) were rained out in two out of their five games in Dalton, Texas, and the team will look for its first win since Feb. 11 when they defeated Tennessee-Martin 7-5.

Since that time, the Huskies have dropped four-straight games on the road, allowing 28 runs to their opponents. NIU was outscored by a total of 55 runs to 36 runs by its opponents this season.

One problem has been the youth of the team; there are seven freshmen this year, creating a steep learning curve and inexperience at playing under pressure.

“They need to work harder, do better and make the plays when the time calls for it,” Chouinard said.

NIU sophomore Stephanie Tofft said the team has practiced making the easy plays under pressure situations.

“We make most of the easy plays; they are the kind of plays you should be making most of the time,” Tofft said. “We’ve been working on it where at practice we will work out of pressure situations. For instance, we will practice two out scenarios, tie ball game scenarios, where there is pressure on the players to make the easy play, but to realize that they can make that play. Its to make sure that everyone isn’t tightening up when the pressure is on and they’re still able to do what they do best on defense.”

Tofft said most of the players are at a stage where they aren’t as tense, and now it’s mostly about settling in and playing the game.

“I think they’re pretty much over that tense stage,” Tofft said. “I think it’s just up to them to settle in now, so I think the younger players are fine as far as being calm. If there is a tense moment we can call timeout and say, ‘Hey, you got this. You’ve done it a million times. Just go out there and do it like you know how to.’”

While the Huskies are still working on defense, their offense, while not producing enough runs to win games, has hit the ball regularly.

In its last game against Creighton, NIU had one less hit than the Blue Jays, but ended up losing 5-1. The Huskies stranded seven runners in that game and struck out three times.

Tofft said NIU has been able to get runners on base, but hasn’t been able to drive them in. She said an emphasis has been placed on hitting more often with runners in scoring position and finding the gaps in the defense.

“I think we do a pretty good job of getting on base, but I think we still need to string the hits together,” Tofft said. “I know I’ve come up a couple times with runners in scoring position and haven’t been able to hit somebody in, but I’ll come up with no one on and I’ll hit a ball that could have scored a runner that had been in scoring position an inning before.”

This is the third road trip NIU has made already this year. Tofft said the Huskies are looking forward to playing in DeKalb as soon as the weather gets warmer.

“I’m really excited finally play on our home turf and not have to travel anywhere,” Tofft said. “We did travel a lot last year, but it takes some getting used to. Traveling…was a big adjustment for me last year as a freshman. But this year, I kind of expected it. It’s still tough, but I know how to handle it a little better.”