THIS WEEK: The North Dakota State softball team plays its home opener at Tharaldson Park this weekend hosting a four-game Summit League series against South Dakota. NDSU (9-19, 4-4 Summit) and USD (8-25, 3-1 Summit) play doubleheaders at noon Saturday, April 10, and 11 a.m. Sunday, April 11. Live stats will be available on BisonStats.com. Live video will be available to NDSU All Access subscribers on GoBison.com and the NDSU Athletics mobile app. Bison 1660 and 92.7 FM will have live coverage of Sunday's 11 a.m. game with Keith Brake on the call.
 
TICKETS & PARKING: All seating is general admission and tickets may be purchased at the gate on game day. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for youth ages 3-17. Parking is available in NDSU parking lot NQ to the north of Tharaldson Park on 17th Avenue. Attendees are strongly encouraged to wear masks.
 
THE SERIES: North Dakota State has a 62-26 lead in the all-time series with South Dakota dating back to 1981. That includes a 27-6 mark in favor of the Bison since 2010 in the teams' first meeting as Division I opponents. NDSU has won three straight including a 9-1 non-conference victory in five innings last month at the Kansas Jayhawk Invitational.
 
THE LAST MEETING: NDSU erupted for eight runs in the fifth inning to beat South Dakota 9-1 on March 19 in the opening game of the Kansas Jayhawk Invitational. Sam Koehn's two-run homer broke a 1-1 tie, Skylar Padgett hit a three-run double, Cameryn Maykut and Stephanie Soriano each hit RBI singles and Montana DeCamp drew a bases-loaded walk in the big inning. Padgett also hit a game-tying solo homer in the second inning. NDSU's Paige Vargas pitched all five innings allowing four hits and two walks with four strikeouts. USD starter Holly Fletcher worked 4.2 innings allowing nine hits and three walks with one strikeout.
 
ABOUT SOUTH DAKOTA: The Coyotes are 8-25 overall but second in The Summit League with a 3-1 record after last week's home series with North Dakota. USD picked up three victories by a combined four runs winning 4-3, 9-7 and 1-0. OF Courtney Wilson leads the Yotes with a .356 batting average, OF Camille Fowler is hitting .321 with two triples, 12 stolen bases and 10 walks, INF Lauren Wobken (.264) has five doubles and 21 RBIs, while INF Lauren Eamiguel (.225) has seven doubles, a triple and 17 RBIs. LHP Sarah Lisko has five wins in the circle for USD with a 4.31 ERA in 19 appearances including 14 starts and 39 strikeouts in 100.2 innings pitched. Head coach Robert Wagner (Washington, 1995) is in his fifth year at USD with a 91-141 record.
 
BISON SPLIT AT KANSAS CITY: North Dakota State is 9-19 overall and third in The Summit League with a 4-4 record after splitting a four-game set at Kansas City last weekend. NDSU swept the Saturday doubleheader winning the opener 6-3 thanks to C Avery Wysong's grand slam with two outs in the seventh inning. RHP Paige Vargas got a strikeout and two ground balls in the bottom of the seventh to close out her fifth win of the season. The Bison got four complete-game efforts in the circle last week including RHP Lainey Lyle, who struck out five with no walks in the series finale for a 4-2 victory. OF Emilee Buringa was 3-for-4 with a double, run scored and two RBIs.
 
SORIANO HITTING STREAK: OF Stephanie Soriano enters the weekend on an eight-game hitting streak and ranks second in The Summit League with a .380 batting average, 72 points higher than her previous career-best .308 as a junior in 2019. Soriano has reached base in 13 straight contests and has 22 hits over that span to raise her batting average to .380 from .216 entering the Jayhawk Invitational on March 19. She has six multi-hit games over the past two weekends of league play and had a career-high four RBIs twice against Kansas and Western Illinois.
 
RETURNING HOME: Saturday will be the 700th day since the last Bison home softball game on May 11, 2019, when NDSU won the Summit League championship with 6-0 and 3-1 wins over South Dakota. NDSU did not play at home during the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season. North Dakota State has won 14 of 15 home openers since beginning Division I play in 2005 including the last two against Purdue Fort Wayne in 2018 (5-0) and South Dakota State in 2019 (5-0). IUPUI is the only Division I opponent to spoil a Bison home opener. The Jaguars beat NDSU 3-1 in 2017 and went on to take two of three in that weekend series.
 
STATISTICAL LEADERS: OF Stephanie Soriano leads the Bison with a .380 batting average, 30 hits, seven doubles and 18 RBIs in 26 games played. OF Madyson Camacho is hitting .324 with a team-high six stolen bases. INF Skylar Padgett (.289) and DP/2B Ciara Jensen (.254) each have two home runs. Padgett leads the team with 13 runs scored and Jensen has 12 walks. C Avery Wysong (.254) has a team-best .508 slugging percentage and three home runs. And freshman OF Emilee Buringa (.444) is coming on strong during league play making the last seven starts for NDSU and hitting 11-for-22 with eight runs scored in that span. RHP Paige Vargas leads the Bison pitching staff with five wins, eight complete games, 60.2 innings and 42 strikeouts.
 
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE: North Dakota State continues to play the The Summit League's toughest non-conference schedule in preparation for league play. NDSU's non-conference strength of schedule ranks 54th and is the only Top 100 schedule in The Summit League. Eight of NDSU's 12 non-conference opponents are in the Top 100 of the current NCAA RPI rankings. South Dakota State (34) leads The Summit League in RPI followed by Kansas City (92) and North Dakota State (160).
 
FOUR-GAME SERIES: With reductions and cancellations in non-conference play this year, The Summit League has expanded its league schedule to four-game series with opponents playing two doubleheaders each weekend. The previous league format was a three-game series with one doubleheader and one single game. Since beginning Summit League play in 2008, NDSU has swept 39 three-game series including 26 away from Fargo. The Bison have been swept only twice in league play with both coming on the road against Purdue Fort Wayne (2010) and Kansas City (2011).
 
BISON PICKED TO WIN SUMMIT: North Dakota State was picked to win The Summit League in a preseason poll of the league's seven head coaches. The Bison have won the last two regular season crowns and six straight league tournament titles. NDSU had six first-place votes followed by South Dakota State, South Dakota, Omaha, Kansas City, North Dakota and Western Illinois.
 
WHO'S BACK: North Dakota State returns 17 of 18 players from last year's COVID-19 shortened season. The Bison lost their last five games of the season to finish 7-16 overall. The Bison had the top fielding team in The Summit League last year with a .965 fielding percentage, a league-low 23 errors and league-high 12 double plays. NDSU hit .257 as a team and had a 4.12 team ERA through 23 games. Designated player Cara Beatty was second in the league with a .393 batting average.
 
FIELD OF THE YEAR: Tharaldson Park, the on-campus home softball stadium for North Dakota State, was named the NCAA Division I winner of the 2020 Netting Professionals NFCA Field of the Year award, which recognizes the top fields/stadiums in the nation for their flawless grounds maintenance and exceptional playing surfaces. Tharaldson Park was dedicated in 2018 after a $2 million renovation including installation of a FieldTurf playing surface and seating for 735 spectators.
 
SUMMIT TOURNEY RETURNS TO FARGO: The Summit League Softball Championship presented by U.S. Air Force Special Warfare is slated to return to Fargo for the ninth time in program history. NDSU will host the league championship May 12-15 at Tharaldson Park. The winner of the six-team tournament will earn the league's automatic qualifier for an NCAA Division I regional.
 
NCAA TOURNAMENT HISTORY: North Dakota State has advanced to NCAA regional play 10 of the past 11 seasons as the Summit League tournament champion. NDSU qualified for its first NCAA Division I tournament in 2009, the school's first year of Division I postseason eligibility, and the Bison swept through the Norman Regional that year to advance to Super Regional play at Arizona State. NDSU made seven NCAA Division II postseason appearances from 1998-2004 including a national championship in 2000.
 
NATIONALLY RANKED OPPONENTS: North Dakota State beat at least one nationally ranked opponent in seven straight seasons from 2012 to 2018 with the most recent Top 25 victory coming in 2018 over 10th-ranked LSU by a 1-0 score in nine innings. That is one of five Bison wins over Top 10 opponents including a 2-1 victory at No. 2 Alabama in 2016, the highest-ranked opponent NDSU has beaten. NDSU's first win over a nationally ranked Division I program came in 2009 with an 11-inning 1-0 victory at No. 9/10 Oklahoma en route to the NCAA regional championship.
 
EXTRA INNINGS: North Dakota State has played five extra-inning games this season with a 3-2 record in those contests. NDSU is 12-4 in extra innings since 2017 and the Bison have a 40-30 record since beginning Division I play in 2005 including three 12-inning games against Colorado State in 2006 (W, 3-2); Kansas City in 2012 (L, 4-6) and Georgia Tech in 2017 (W, 8-6).
 
NO-HITTERS: North Dakota State pitchers have thrown 30 no-hitters including 13 against Division I opponents with the last coming in 2019 when KK Leddy blanked South Dakota State 5-0. There have been eight perfect games by NDSU pitchers with the last one in 2015 by Krista Menke at Purdue Fort Wayne. There have been six no-hitters pitched against NDSU in Division I play since 2005. Illinois State's Morgan Day struck out 16 and walked one in the last no-hitter against North Dakota State in the championship game of the Middle Tennessee State University Invitational on March 14.