Indiana softball has been 'on mission' to reach fourth straight NCAA regional
Shonda Stanton has reset the expectations since arriving as Indiana softball coach. And it has resonated with her Hoosiers.
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.