IU returns home to face 2 ranked foes in Michigan, Northwestern

The IU women's softball team will play host to two of the country's top teams this weekend whenthe No. 16 Northwestern Wildcats and No. 1 Michigan Wolverines make the trip to Bloomington. \nAfter splitting the first four games of their last road trip, the Hoosiers were scheduled to play Indiana State in Terre Haute last Wednesday to make up a game between the two teams that was originally rained out.\nAlthough having almost an entire week with no games before Friday's against Northwestern, the Hoosiers will be using last week's sweep of Illinois for confidence heading into what could be their most difficult weekend series of the season.\n"It was fantastic to get the sweep of Illinois," said sophomore Rachel Terry. "It picked up everybody's confidence and let us know that, even though we are in one of the top conferences in the country, we can play and beat these teams."\nThe Hoosiers will look to their combination of solid offense and suffocating pitching that shut down the Fighting Illini in back-to-back IU wins.\nIn their two wins, the Hoosiers managed to score seven runs on 11 hits compared with scoring zero runs on three hits against Iowa later the same weekend.\n"It is going to be a true test this weekend," said IU coach Stacey Phillips. "We have grown as a team throughout the season and I know now we can handle playing ranked teams better then we did earlier in the year."\nLast season the Hoosiers played Michigan closely both times the teams met, losing 3-2 and 4-1 to the Wolverines in Bloomington. IU trails the all-time series 26-54, the Hoosiers' last win against Michigan coming in 1996.\n"We know that Northwestern and Michigan are good teams, but we can beat them if we play our game," said junior Lauren Hines\nThe Hoosiers will face Northwestern at 3 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday. Sunday's match-up against Michigan will be a doubleheader starting at noon.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Kevin Dwire at kdwire@indiana.edu.