DEKALB, Ill. – Tenth-year head coach Christina Sutcliffe has a simple mentality for the Northern Illinois University softball team in the 2022 season.

"Anything short of getting to the MAC tournament and making a run there would be a disappointment for our team this year," she said.

With a combination of veteran leadership and a solid core of freshman and transfer student-athletes, there's no reason the Huskies shouldn't hit their mark.

"We've got a healthy group of returners and that starts with our catalyst Katie Keller," Sutcliffe said. "She'll take most of her time either behind the plate or at first base, but we also have a strong senior class that fills in everywhere. We may possibly have an entire senior outfield depending on where everything falls, and our entire pitching staff is returning as well so they're looking to build upon their experience."

Keller became only the second Huskie softball player to earn first team All-Great Lake Region honors twice in her career, a feat that hasn't been accomplished by any NIU softball player since the 1996 season. The Geneva native also led the NCAA in doubles with a school-record 23 and led the Huskies in 12 offensive categories. NIU will look to Keller and to seniors Bianca Barone, Amberly Rodriguez, Mackenzie Mahy and Kara Apato to lead the way both at the plate and in the field, as Sutcliffe believes the Huskies will need to excel on both offense and defense to find success.

"Traditionally we've hung our hat on being pretty scrappy and aggressive on the basepaths and we like to push the envelope," she said. "We also play a variety of defensive shifts, and we're a big play the odds of the hitter-type program so I think we have a nice balance which is nice. If one [aspect] is struggling in a game, hopefully we can rely on the other to pick us up."

The Huskies will see several top-level programs at the season-opening Florida Atlantic Tournament, including Ohio State, Indiana and Bethune-Cookman as well as the host Owls, a tourney slate Sutcliffe is more than content with.

"It's going to be a great test to see where we are," she said. "We're all a little nervous without having practiced on the dirt yet or even kind of been outside, but that's the same for most of the opponents we're going to be playing. But anytime you're opening up with three power five schools and you can test yourself against the Big Ten, it's an exciting and motivating situation."

The non-conference schedule only continues to prep the Huskies for the always vigorous Mid-American Conference campaign as they then travel to the Frost Classic Feb. 25-27 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"We're going to be facing some great competition there as Chattanooga is usually a contender for postseason and SIU is always in the postseason," Sutcliffe said. "EKU (Eastern Kentucky) I think is going be really good this year, so it's a good balance of exactly the type of the opponents that we're going to face in the upper level of the MAC for sure."

NIU is picked to finish eighth in the 2022 preseason MAC poll with Miami and Kent State slated to finish first and second. But it's anyone's conference to win now that the postseason tournament returns after a two-year COVID-related hiatus.

"I'm excited that we have it back because sometimes I think our regular season champion isn't necessarily the most tournament successful team," Sutcliffe said. "Kent State, Miami and Ball State are definitely going to be the teams everybody is shooting for, but it's going to be good just to get back to some normalcy after coming off of two difficult years just for a number of reasons."

NIU opens Mid-American Conference play at Bowling Green on March 18, and 23 games into the season, will play at home for the first time when they take on Illinois State at Mary M. Bell Field on Wednesday, March 23rd.    

Live Stats for this weekend's games are available via the Florida Atlantic Athletics Website
Stats: https://fausports.com/sidearmstats/softball/summary

-NIU-