FARGO - Their hometowns are an exercise in United States geography, but you would never know it when talking to players on the North Dakota State softball team. Their Flight Base of Operations is Fargo, and they say they wouldn't want it any other way.
Of course, winning helps - 40 games to be specific heading into the Summit League softball championships that start today at Ellig Sports Complex. The players borrowed a military nickname as a way to show their solidarity to all the travel and questionable weather conditions.
"We call ourselves the Band of Brothers," said pitcher Krista Menke. "It's so awesome to know you have family here even though your family isn't here."
It's to the point now that Menke, a senior, says her "mom gets mad at me sometimes when I call Fargo home. It's just important to be comfortable with where you're at."
Like a lot of out-of-state players NDSU has attracted over the years, Menke, from Friend, Neb., questioned coming north to play softball. Senior outfielder Alex Sobrero from Paradise, Calif. - why would anybody leave Paradise? - remembers her first winter and saying to herself she'll put in four years and leave. Now? She has school to finish, so she'll happily be here another year.
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"Yeah, we're always on the fly here," Sobrero said. "You don't know if you're going to be inside, outside, if it's going to rain, snow wind so I think Fargo prepares us to be flexible. Now that I've been here for four years, it's different. You fall in love with Fargo."
NDSU has nine players from California and two from Nevada, but head coach Darren Mueller said he believes it's important to mix the West Coast players with players from the Midwest. Two are from Minnesota, one from Iowa and outfielder Courtney Johnson from Fargo North.
"They all understand what we have to go through up in North Dakota to play softball, and I think they rally around that," Mueller said. "We've just really had good young women with good values who have the same type of goals in and out of softball. It's something we always talk about - it's a team thing, not an individual thing."
The Bison have parlayed the team thing into titles. They are seeking their sixth Summit title in seven years and an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.
The Summit tourney begins Wednesday with two loser-out first games: No. 4 seed Western Illinois vs. No. 5 South Dakota State at noon and No. 3 IUPUI vs. No. 6 Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne at 3 p.m. NDSU will play the winner of Western and SDSU at noon Thursday. The format changes to double-elimination Thursday through Saturday, with the title game set for 1 p.m. on the final day.
With a 40-9 record and a team that has been sitting just outside the Division I top 25 poll the last few weeks, the Bison are the obvious favorites. But they're also playing at a place they don't play very often: They're own home field.
It's probably another reason why they take the us-against-the-rest-of-the-country mentality when they hit the road.
"We like to get in a routine when we're playing away, so having it here isn't necessarily an advantage," Menke said.
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Weather may factor into the tournament with rain in the forecast Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday's first-round games were already moved up three hours. But the way the Bison operate, throwing an obstacle or two into the mix may feel more normal.
They're the Band of Brothers, after all.
"They're creative. They come up with stuff," Mueller said. "You don't want to take anything away from anybody military-wise because they do way more than we do, but they like that name. It's about sticking together."
