NDSU Softball: NDSU Uses Summit League Losses as a Lesson Heading into NCAA Tournament

NDSU softball hit the 20 win mark before beginning conference play this season

FARGO, N.D. —When you win nine Summit League Tournament titles in one decade and put up 30 wins year-after-year, it becomes easy to overlook weaker opponents.

That’s what happened to NDSU softball after hitting the 20 win mark before beginning conference play. The herd then took losses to Omaha, South Dakota State and Fort Wayne in their first few tastes of Summit League competition.

Now, looking back, those losses helped the Bison flip things around as they delivered another conference title.

“It really served as a wake-up call for us because we had an easier preseason schedule I would say than we had in previous years, so we had a lot more wins this year and I think going into conference we were kind of like ‘okay we got this in the bag,'” right fielder Bre Beatty said. “Then we took that loss to SDSU and we were like ‘we don’t got this in the bag. We need to get our stuff together. We need to get going. It’s go time.'”

“After the loss everybody just kind of bought in,” pitcher Jax Sertic said. “Freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors we all bought in to one goal, and that’s win the next game and then it ended up us winning the league and then winning conference tournament.”

The Bison face Mississippi State in the Regional tournament on Friday in Tucson, Arizona.