The road doesn’t seem to be getting any easier for the Illinois softball team.

After what the Illini (10-15, 0-3 Big Ten) called a disappointing opening to their Big Ten schedule, they return to action this weekend at home against No. 24 Nebraska (23-6, 2-0), which went 4-1 last week.

“Our team is really disappointed at our opening weekend of Big Ten play, but not discouraged,” head coach Terri Sullivan said. “At this point, we can’t get too high after a win or too low after a loss. We just need to get back to practice, watch game film, grind it out and prepare for the next challenge. We have to play good softball and play in the moment.”

After winning the first Fighting Illini Invitational two weeks ago, Illinois was swept by the Wisconsin last weekend to open Big Ten play. The team will start the weekend Saturday with a doubleheader at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. before finishing up the series with a game at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

“I think we’re going to be better,” Sullivan said. “We’ve really practiced well, everyone has come in with a sense of purpose, and we all came at it wanting to get better and move on. Nebraska is very tough, but we are too.”

The Illini will have a tough task taking on an offensively explosive Nebraska team that has won nine of its games by mercy rule.

“They’re an extremely talented and very powerful team offensively,” Sullivan said. “Throughout their entire lineup, they’re very aggressive at the plate. They hit for power and average, and they’re playing really good softball right now. No matter what, you have to expect your opponent to be at their best, and we have to be at ours.”

Illinois will not only need to stop the Cornhuskers offense but also endure the lingering winter conditions, which already canceled Wednesday’s game against Illinois State and forced the movement of Friday’s game to make Saturday a doubleheader.

“We have a rule on our team that we can’t talk about the weather, but we just gotta have the snow melt and have the sun out there bright and strong,” Sullivan said.

The Illini have been working on a number of things leading into the weekend, mostly centered on bringing out the practice atmosphere in games.

“We’ve been competing against each other because that is where the athlete comes out in all of us,” senior redshirt catcher Linnea Detrick said. “Now, we just have to take how we compete against each other and transfer it over to the games.”

Trust will also be key in Illinois turning its play around.

“We just have to trust our preparation,” senior pitcher Pepper Gay said. “We’ve had good practices and we just have to believe. We have to be able to make the routine plays and not let anything get in our heads.”

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