Series sweep will clinch tourney berth

The Hoosiers are looking to do what no IU softball team has done since 1996 -- earn a spot in the Big Ten tournament. It's fitting that the team's tournament chances hinge on its performance against its biggest rivals, the Purdue Boilermakers.\nIU (31-30, 6-12) currently sits in ninth place in the conference standings, but a series sweep of Purdue would vault the team into the Big Ten tournament. Even if the Hoosiers fail to sweep the Boilers they can still make the tournament if they split this weekend's series with Purdue and Ohio State sweeps Penn State this weekend. \nThe Hoosiers are not only playing for bragging rights and a chance at postseason play, they are playing for the lead in the annual Titan Series. The Titan Series is a competition between the in-state rivals in which the schools head-to-head performances in 23 sports are recorded in a point system. Purdue and IU are currently tied in the series with 8.5 points apiece and the only contests remaining are softball, men's golf and baseball. \nWhen IU takes the field Saturday, it will mark the home finale for four seniors: Karly McCormack, Abby Page, Heather Stillians and Val White. While the team will be focused on playing its way into the Big Ten tournament, it will be an emotional day for the departing seniors.\n"I am going to miss all of my teammates but especially the other seniors on the team," White said. "Even Karly, who is a transfer senior, seems like a teammate that I have played with for four years."\nAlthough the team got off to a rocky start this season, Stillians still feels an incredible connection to her teammates.\n"We had trouble meshing at the beginning of the season," Stillians said. "We evolved into a really close team and at this point in the season and I am closer with this team as I have been with any other team in the past." \nWhat coach Sara Hayes Nottger will remember the most about the seniors is their ability to adapt to their changing roles with the team.\n"She (Stillians) has been the go-to player in the past few seasons and her role changed this season," Nottger said. "She could have handled the situation in a much different way but because of how she handled the situation we feel that she excelled even further than we had ever imagined." \nPurdue is coming off a weekend where they fell to Ohio State and split their series with Penn State. \nThe Hoosiers will be facing a stingy Purdue pitching staff that has a combined 1.88 ERA. Freshman Brooke Baker leads the unit with a 17-11 record and a 1.73 ERA. \nIU hopes to add two more wins to its win total, which would give the team 33 wins in the season, the most since 1996 when the Hoosiers recorded 37 victories. \nThe Hoosiers play host to the Boilermakers Saturday with the game set to start at noon. The second game of the series will be played in West Lafayette Sunday and is set to start at 1 p.m. \n-- Contact staff writer Mark Carlson at mecarlso@indiana.edu.