The South Dakota State softball team is past its halfway point of the season and is now getting ready for Summit League play this weekend.

The Jackrabbits were originally supposed to begin conference play last weekend against Western Illinois, but that series was postponed due to circumstances regarding an off-campus incident in Macomb Friday.

Now the Jacks look ahead to a three-game series on the road against St. Thomas, a doubleheader Saturday and another game Sunday, to begin their Summit League schedule.

The Tommies are 8-21 overall this season in only their second year in Division I. They began their Summit League schedule last weekend against Omaha where they lost the first two games before the third one was canceled.

Shortstop Brooke Ellestad has been St. Thomas’ best offensive player this season. She leads the team in batting average (.388), home runs (four) and RBIs (19). Avery Wukawitz is second on the team in batting average, hitting .321 this year.

Ella Cook leads the St. Thomas pitching staff in ERA at 3.93 and in strikeouts with 29. Their leader in wins is Isabelle True, who has a 6-7 record.

They are matching up against a Jackrabbit team that beat them three times last season. In those three games, The Jacks outscored the Tommies 25-1.

This season, SDSU’s leader in batting average is sophomore infielder Mia Jarecki at .347. Rozelyn Carrillo leads the Jacks in both home runs (six) and RBIs (25) and is third in batting average (.248).

On the Jackrabbit pitching staff, Tori Kniesche has a 10-4 record and leads the team in ERA (2.73) and strikeouts (91). Shannon Lasey has a 7-6 record with 72 strikeouts and a 3.63 ERA this season.

It’s been a busy, up-and-down season for the Jackrabbits so far. They are currently 17-14 overall with more losses this season than they had all of last season. Because of the busy schedule, there haven’t been many opportunities to rest up and practice. The Jacks have now gotten opportunities to do so in the last week.

“We look at this situation and say, ‘man three less games’,” coach Kristina McSweeney said. “But we also look at it like ‘we got to rest up, we got to be able to work on some things that we needed to work on, we got to intersquad and face each other and we got to do some things in preparation a strong show this coming week.”

The Jacks also faced tough opponents in the non-conference schedule, having matched up against five nationally ranked opponents. The first ranked opponent that faced was No. 3 Oklahoma State for two games in Stillwater March 4 and 5. Both games resulted in shutout losses.

SDSU then faced No. 6 Stanford March 10 at the Jayhawk Invitational in Lawrence, Kansas. The Jacks were again shut out 6-0. They then traveled to Norman, Oklahoma March 13 to take on the top-ranked Sooners, where SDSU lost 8-0 in five innings.

No. 20 Baylor was next in a March 15 doubleheader in Waco, Texas. In the first game, the Jacks started quickly, scoring a run in the first inning and then four more in the third inning to take a 5-0 lead. From there, SDSU held on to earn its first win over a ranked opponent in program history.

The Jackrabbits’ last games on the non-conference schedule were in Wichita, Kansas. After two wins against Northern Colorado, the Jacks faced 23rd-ranked Wichita State. They nearly picked up their second ranked win, but the Shockers responded with three runs in the final at-bat to come up with a 4-3 victory.

“I don’t think they give themselves enough credit of how resilient they have been,” McSweeney said. “We passed our test and we’re just going to get better.”

With the conference slate beginning this weekend, the reigning Summit League champions look to continue their recent dominance over the rest of the conference. They’ve gone 39-3 in the Summit League over the last two years and are expected to continue that run this year.

“You have to be mentally tough, and you have to be able to get through some hurdles to be able to say, ‘now we’re going to go into conference play, we have a title to defend, and we have all these things that we want to do in conference,’” McSweeney said.