In the final days before break, most Illinois students are daydreaming about traveling somewhere warm. But as they do every year over break, the Illini will be playing softball. 

They wouldn’t want it any other way. 

“Honestly, it’s right where I want to be,” freshman Kylie Johnson said. “I would rather be playing than anything else. I’m here for a reason, and that’s softball. Especially now that we’re getting ready for Big Tens, this is a good weekend to do that and get excited.”

Illinois will kick off break by hosting the Fighting Illini Invitational, its first-ever non-conference invitational, at home against Saint Louis, Western Michigan and Loyola this weekend.

“I think there’s a little bit of pressure because you’re expected to win on your home field, but it’s good pressure,” Johnson said.

Besides nerves, another possible worry could be that the ever-changing Illinois weather would affect play. According to Johnson, it won’t in the slightest.

“It’s something that Illinois girls are used to,” Johnson said. “It feels like high school season. We’re used to it being cold. Plus it’s something that both teams have to play with, so it can’t be that big of a factor.”

After their invitational, the Illini will travel to play at Missouri on Wednesday before coming back home to end spring break and open their Big Ten season against Wisconsin.

“Usually it’s pretty warm over spring break, so I’m not gonna complain,” junior Alex Booker said. “I actually like staying in Champaign over break. Sure I get to see all my friends going out and doing whatever they do, but we have midweek games and it’s just like any other week. We’re still doing schoolwork and getting that little chance to catch up and it’s all softball. It’s like the summer for us, we’re only focusing on softball and going into our Big Ten conference schedule.”

Illinois is happy that it doesn’t have to travel as much over break as it has in the past, but wish that more students could come to its first few home games of the year.

“Our spring break always falls at a little different point in the year and this year it fell so close to Big Ten season, so we actually like that we won’t be on the road this weekend just so we can get on our own field before we host the opening weekend of Big Ten,” head coach Terri Sullivan said. “Obviously we’d love for the students to be around because it’s fun to have them in the stands, but we just want to play ball. When we step between the lines — wherever you are, home or away — you’ve got the same pitching distance, same base path and the idea is to play really good softball.”

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