Indiana Softball to Play at USF Invitational

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. ––– Back to the Sunshine State, Indiana Softball will play in the USF Invitational from Friday to Monday (Feb. 20-23).

The Hoosiers enter the weekend with a 7-3 mark and games against Colgate, Saint Joseph's, Marist, Boston College and USF on the docket for the weekend.

QUICK HITTERS:

In Indiana's win over Portland State to begin play in the Littlewood Invitational, Aly VanBrandt hit for the cycle, going 5-for-5 with two home runs. She hit for the cycle in order with two home runs to finish it.
VanBrandt also tied program records for single-game highs of 7 RBI and 5 hits.
Indiana led the nation in three statistical categories last season: batting average (.365), doubles per game (2.13) and on base percentage (.454).
Indiana returns five of their top nine bats in the lineup from a year ago, including two of the top three: Madalyn Strader (.413), Avery Parker (.392), Aly VanBrandt (.372), Josie Bird (.311) and Alex Cooper (.311).
Indiana's Avery Parker, Alex Cooper, and Aly VanBrandt were all named to the Preseason Big Ten Players to Watch List entering the 2026 season.

LAST TIME OUT:

Through the first 10 games of the season, Indiana is outscoring its opponents 89-29 and hitting for a .382 batting average.
The Hoosiers have four batters who are hitting above .400, including one player hitting over the .500 mark: Ellie Goins (.520), Aly VanBrandt (.485), Avery Parker (.462) and Alex Cooper (.444).
Parker leads the team in home runs (5) while Goins, VanBrandt and Bird all have notched two so far this year.
The Hoosiers took three of five games at the Littlewood Invitational, defeating Portland State, Pacific and Nevada once. They dropped games to Arizona State and Nevada.
The wins over Portland State and Pacific came by run rule, with the win over Portland State being a dominating 23-0 final score.
The Hoosiers narrowly lost to No. 22 Arizona State, 7-6, but did lead 3-0 earlier in the game.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENT:

Colgate comes into the weekend with a 3-7 record after going 1-4 at the Whataburger Invitational.
Saint Joseph's has only played one weekend of softball so far, sporting a 2-4 record with wins over Delaware and Elon. They played six games while in Chapel Hill, N.C. for their first weekend of play.
In their first two weekends of action, Marist went 5-4, including a 3-2 opening weekend at the Charleston Southern Tournament. The Red Foxes went 2-2 at East Texas A&M the next week with their game against Grambling State getting canceled.
Boston College is off to a 4-6 beginning in their 2026 campaign. This will be their second-straight weekend at USF and defeated Kansas and DePaul last weekend in Tampa.
USF is off to an impressive 10-4 start through two weekends of play and a midweek doubleheader against Stetson earlier this week.

SERIES HISTORY NOTES:

Indiana's record against the field in the USF Invitational is as follows: Boston College: 2-1 (last meeting: 2018), Saint Joseph's: 2-0 (last meeting: 2020), USF: 10-9 (last meeting: 2007). It will be the first all-time meeting with Colgate and Marist.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Josie Bird

Alex Cooper

Ellie Goins

Avery Parker

Madalyn Strader

Aly VanBrandt

Indiana University Athletics