North Dakota State University’s softball team is set to compete in the Spring in The Springs Invitational, held in Boiling Springs, North Carolina from February 27 to March 1. The event is hosted by Gardner-Webb University.
The Bison will open the tournament on Friday with games against New Haven and Gardner-Webb, starting at 9 a.m. Central Time. On Saturday, they will play New Haven again and face Lafayette. The weekend concludes with a second matchup against Lafayette on Sunday at 8 a.m. Central Time.
All games during the invitational will feature live statistics, with coverage links available on the team’s schedule page at gobison.com.
This trip marks North Dakota State’s seventh visit to North Carolina and its first since 2024, when the team began its season with a 12-game stretch that included contests against UNC Wilmington and North Carolina State. The Bison have an all-time record of 28-13 in North Carolina, including an 18-12 mark since joining Division I. This will be their first appearance in Boiling Springs and at Gardner-Webb.
North Dakota State has previously played New Haven twice, both times during Darren Mueller’s inaugural year as head coach in 2002. NDSU won those games by scores of 3-2 (in nine innings) and 9-0 (in five innings), both held in Pensacola, Florida.
Against Gardner-Webb, NDSU holds one previous victory—a 5-2 win on March 4, 2011 at the Florida Lipton Invitational in Gainesville.
The Bison have faced Lafayette once before as well, winning a shortened five-inning game by a score of 3-2 on March 12, 2005 at the Charlotte Holiday Inn 49ers Classic.
At their most recent tournament—the Gopher Indoor Classic—NDSU recorded five triples over the weekend, including three against Long Island. This set a new Division I era record for the program and marked their first three-triple game since April 7, 2001. So far this season, NDSU has hit seven triples, ranking ninth nationally.
Sophomore Amai Hanta contributed three triples during that tournament and is now tied for fourth overall among NCAA Division I players this season. Hanta also matched her career high with three hits in a comeback win over Minnesota and had three multi-hit games overall at the event.
Lileigh Nieto hit her first career home run—an inside-the-park homer—in the opening game against Long Island. It was NDSU’s first inside-the-park home run since February 26, 2021.
Junior Star Cortez continues to lead offensively after starting every game last season and earning all-league honors. Cortez has started all fourteen games this year and leads NDSU with a .429 batting average along with eight walks (.520 OBP), two triples, three RBIs, ten runs scored, and three stolen bases.
Several Bison players have demonstrated strong plate discipline early this season: Bella Dean has not struck out in her first fifty-four plate appearances; Taylinn Warren also remains strikeout-free through twenty-nine plate appearances; Zoe King (fifty-three PAs) and Star Cortez (fifty PAs) have only two strikeouts each. In the previous season (2025), NDSU led the Summit League for fewest strikeouts per plate appearance—striking out just under twelve percent of the time compared to a league average of over fourteen percent.
Nieto has seen increased production as an everyday starter this year after limited opportunities last season; she currently bats .356 with sixteen hits and five walks through three weeks of play.
On the basepaths, NDSU leads its conference both in total stolen bases (twenty) and per-game rate (1.43). Last year they topped these categories as well with forty-three steals across their schedule.
Last week at the Gopher Indoor Classic saw mixed results for North Dakota State: they opened with a shutout win over Long Island but fell to Central Michigan later that day; after losing an extra-inning contest to Iowa State they closed out with a come-from-behind victory against Minnesota.
Following this weekend’s invitational in North Carolina—and having already made multiple trips east—the Bison will travel west for another extended road trip beginning at UNLV’s Red & Black Classic in Las Vegas where they are scheduled to play Loyola Marymount once along with two games each versus host UNLV and Utah Tech.
