CARBONDALE (WSIL) -- SIU softball is in a championship state of mind.
The Salukis left Wednesday at 4 PM for Evansville, home of this year's Missouri Valley Tournament.
SIU needs 3 wins to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
Hitting is going to be key to the Salukis success in this week's Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
SIU softball as a team is ranked 7th out of ten Missouri Valley Conference teams in hitting, but the potential is there, four players are batting over .300.
"All season, it seems like we haven't been able to put together every single piece together. One game we will have good hitting and good pitching and have rough defense or maybe we'll have good defense and good pitching but we won't be able to hit the ball so we know we have all the pieces and hopefully this weekend we'll be able to put it all together," SIU senior Jenny Jansen said.
Maddy Vermejan is the schools new record holder in stolen bases. The first team All Valley players understands the importance of her getting on base.
"I'd definitely say in that first inning I try to set the table for our offense," SIU graduate student Maddy Vermejan said. "I feel a lot of girls look up to me and know that if I can get on, they can do it too. It's not so much pressure but I do feel that once I get on, it gets the offense rolling."
Pitching is a strength for SIU and its starts with second team all conference player Sarah Harness. She didn't win 19 games by accident and she'll need to be strong in teh circle if the Salukis are to get hot.
"I'm pretty level-headed and stay constant in the circle and so me continuing to be that person and not try to be someone I'm not is something they feed off of, so when I am trying to do something extra everything goes haywire so remaining who I am and doing what I do is, it feeds the team," SIU sophomore pitcher Sarah Harness said.
SIU is a 4 seed, but it's just a number. SIU won the tournament as a 3 seed in 2017. They've been here before and they like their chances.
"We are pretty resilient, we don't take a loss too hard," Jansen said. "We are really good at losing and then we will come back and going into the tournament that is going to help us out. We didn't coast all season, we faced a lot of adversity, Woody (Ashley Wood) went down and our winning streak, it's been a roller coaster ever since so I don't know, I think we are just resilient and I think that will really help us out in the tournament."
