INDIANAPOLIS – IUPUI softball head coach
Elisabeth Beirne has announced the 2019 schedule for IUPUI softball. The Jaguars will play five teams that made last season's NCAA Softball Tournament and will host some of the best teams in the Horizon League at the IUPUI softball complex.
The 2019 slate features five tournaments to begin the year and 13 home games. The Jaguars will begin conference play on March 22 with a three-game series at Northern Kentucky and will host their first Horizon League series the following weekend against Youngstown State (March 29-30).
"We are excited out our spring schedule," said Beirne. "We have a good mix of preseason tournaments before heading in to the Horizon League games. The mix of competition will challenge our team and prepare us for conference play."
The Jags begin their season in Rosemont, Ill., at the Total Control Invitational (Feb. 8-10) with five games against Western Illinois (2x), Butler, UMKC and Loyola-Chicago. The following weekend, IUPUI will be in Statesboro, Ga., at the Eagle Round Robin hosted by Georgia Southern and will see UMKC two more times to go along with games against the hosts as well as Mount Saint Mary and Morehead State.
The meat of the Jaguars non-conference schedule comes the next two weeks beginning with a trip to Arkansas for the Razorback Invitational (Feb. 22-24). The Jags will take on two 2018 NCAA Tournament teams with games against Drake and Arkansas as well as two matchups against SIU Edwardsville and a game against Southeast Missouri State. At the Cardinal Classic (March 2-3) hosted by Louisville, IUPUI will play Louisville twice, Indiana State and another tournament team in Missouri.
In what is a trend of playing teams in multiple tournaments, IUPUI both Drake and Indiana State again at the UofM Softball Tournament in Memphis, Tenn. (March 8-10). The Jags will also play Belmont twice and Memphis to round out the five game slate.
Before conference play starts, IUPUI has three more non-conference games on the slate with a double header at Indiana State (March 13) and a single game at Illinois (March 19). The remaining non-conference schedule for the Jags features games at Notre Dame (April 2) and Eastern Illinois (April 23) as well as a home date against Butler (April 3).
Outside of the series against Youngstown State, IUPUI will host three of the top four teams from last season. The Jags will host Wright State on April 5-6 before six-straight games against last season's top two teams playing second-place Oakland on April 12-13 and defending champion UIC on April 16-17, a midweek series.
IUPUI's road schedule looks significantly easier with visits to last year's bottom three teams as the Jags visit Green Bay (April 9-10, midweek), Cleveland State (April 19-20) and end the year at Detroit Mercy (May 3-4).
The 2019 Horizon League Championship will be May 8-11 with the regular season champion hosting the tournament.
