After a weekend filled with runners left on base, the last thing the Illinois softball team wanted to do was be stranded again, but that’s what happened Sunday on its return trip from Palm Springs, Calif.

Due to a snowstorm in Denver, the Illini were forced to split up with half the team coming home on a different flight and the other half the next day.

The delays forced Illinois to practice with only part of its roster until Wednesday in preparation of this weekend’s USF Under Armour Invitational.

“This is probably some of the worst travel I’ve ever experienced in my 23 years coaching, but the players are so resilient,” head coach Terri Sullivan said. “They’re tough, they know how to get refueled and I was so impressed with their patience. We basically got everyone back to practice Wednesday and we left today (Thursday), but we’re ready to play ball and excited to get after it.”

The Illini are coming off of an 0-4 performance last weekend due in large part to the level of competition and their inability to advance runners.

“As far as last weekend goes I think you have to give credit to who we played and I think our team is aware of how they’ve been challenged,” Sullivan said. “It was an aggressive schedule last weekend against some of the nations best pitchers and I felt that as they progressed through the tournament they got better and started to focus more on us than the other guys. We really pitched well and put our team in a position to get it done and we just never offensively got a lot of rhythm and momentum throughout our lineup.”

Illinois will look for consistency at the start of its weekend against two of the best offensive teams in the country in South Florida and No. 19 Kentucky.

“Our main focus is being strong through the tournament,” Sullivan said. “We want to open up really well and we haven’t done that in the first three tournaments, and again a lot of that is credit to who we played. We also want to finish strong and focus more on our own game then the other guy’s game. I think when we do that and stick to our game plan we’re in a really good position to have a successful weekend.”

The Orange and Blue will finish the weekend with their second double header in as many days against Maine and Toledo before wrapping up on Sunday versus Providence.

In order for the team to have success, the Illini have been working on a number of things in practice this week.

“We are working on execution,” sophomore Shelese Arnold said. “Yesterday we worked on hitting and pitching with runners on because as a pitching staff we want our batting average to be lower with runners on and as hitters we want to be aggressive and attack the ball.”

Sullivan says Illinois has shown strength in both their pitching and defense and now they must work on their offensive performance.

“Our offensive lineup just needs to click better,” sophomore Brittany Sanchez said. “We’ve been focusing a lot on execution and things like moving runners around. We need those big hits when runners are on and our defense and pitchers have been really solid, so now it’s just focusing on getting those hits when we need them.”

The Illini’s goals for the weekend are simple they just want to win. In order to achieve the goal Illinois will need to score early.

“Offensively we have been working to get on base especially early in the game. It’s such a momentum grabber when you score first and so we worked a lot on that and on hitting with runners on base. We were successful in our last tournament against some of the best pitchers in the country getting on base, so we just need to push runs through, execute everything a little better, stay within ourselves and play our game.”

Nicholas can be reached at [email protected] and @IlliniSportsGuy.