As Washburn students struggled with the near zero temperatures, the Washburn softball team was in Minnesota where the high temperatures were between zero and 10 below. Luckily they were playing in the confines of the St. Cloud State dome.

The Lady Blues headed into Minnesota with the confidence of beating the second ranked team in the nation and a second place finish at the San Angelo State tournament last weekend. Heading into the tournament, the Lady Blues were focusing on the fundamentals and playing with the intensity that helped them at San Angelo.

“Early in the week, coach was focusing a lot on our defense. Toward the end, we were working on hitting a lot more and game situation drills. We just need to do what we did last week if we want to do well. We hit the ball really well and our pitching was good, we just have to finish the games,” said Mandy Tarbutton, sophomore outfielder.

With some regional teams in the tournament, a strong showing by the Lady Blues will help their regional rankings, which come out in March. The game circled on the Lady Blues’ calendar is the matchup against seventh-ranked Concordia-St.Paul, which is the only ranked regional opponent the Blues will face.

“A win against Concordia would be nice because it helps our ranking. We just need to play together as a team and we should do fine. We don’t have any injuries right now, we’re just hoping nobody gets sick with this cold weather,” said Tarbutton.

After St. Cloud, the Lady Blues will travel to Arkansas this weekend in the Henderson State Invite. After another tournament the following weekend in the Missouri Western Invite, the Lady Blues will return home to host Missouri Southern at 1 p.m. on March 15 and Benedictine at 1 p.m. on March 16.