Upsets aren’t all that uncommon in March.

Softball coach Terri Sullivan knows it all too well and hopes her team won’t fall to struggling Loyola Chicago in a doubleheader today.

Loyola, who is 4-18 overall, has not played its best softball as of late, losing its last seven games. In those seven defeats, the Ramblers have scored only four runs and have been shut out five times. Loyola is led by sophomore Lindsay O’Gean, who ranked second on the team with 44 hits and 16 stolen bases last year, and junior Raven Gengler, who led the Ramblers with a .327 batting average, 25 runs, 12 doubles, eight home runs and 29 RBI in 2005.

“We like to go into every game expecting every team to play at its best,” Sullivan said. “We don’t pay any attention to records.”

While Illinois (11-15) is not a powerhouse softball team, the women have been coming around recently. In last weekend’s Stanford Invitational, Illinois’ fielding and pitching was at a season high.

Illinois’ defense made only three errors in 60 total attempts for a .981 fielding percentage, while the pitching staff set a season-low mark for earned run average at 3.61.

But the pitching staff has given up 33 home runs on the year and has a tendency to give up the long ball in the late innings. Just this weekend, Princeton came back and took the lead with a two-run home run in the fifth inning.

Sullivan said Claire DeVreese and Kacey Coonce have been working on hitting their spots, throwing pitches with confidence and throwing to the batter’s weakness in order to keep the opposing team’s offense in check down the stretch.

“We’ve had some really tough battles with teams where we’re matching them in every way and then have given up a home run at the wrong time,” Sullivan said. “We’ve made it a real focus among our pitching staff to limit the long ball as far as not having runners on. You’re going to have some hit off you, but you don’t want to allow runners on.”

The Illini offense has struggled lately, batting only .233 this past weekend after taking the Big Ten lead in batting average the previous weekend.

“At this point, our players are very well skilled and conditioned to hit,” Sullivan said. “It’s all frame of mind – stepping into the batters box with a lot of confidence. We felt really good about everyone in our lineup, but we reached a point where we went flat. We know we can’t do that as a team. Someone has to ignite the offense and play relaxed.”

Senior first basemen Jenna Hall sat out a couple games during the weekend after diving for a foul ball down the line and banging her knee. Sullivan hopes to rest Hall by plugging her in as the designated hitter.

“It’s more aggravating than anything,” Sullivan said. “Jenna doesn’t like to miss a beat.”