Softball is back in Bowling Green as the Falcons prepare for the first season of the Michelle Gardner era.
Gardner was hired on June 24, 2024, and her coaching staff on Aug. 20. Only three days later she added her first and only transfer, outfielder Kendall Matthews out of Lake Land College. She also kept six freshman commits who are on the roster to start the 2025 season.
The 11 incoming faces (four coaches, seven players) come to fill the 12 holes left behind (three coaches, nine players). The biggest are ones left by their best slugger, senior Reagan Williamson, and freshman outfielder and offensive prodigy Aaralyn Nogay.
Williamson graduated as a team leader in OPS (.873), slugging percentage (.491), home runs (six), RBIs (19), walks (19), and total bases (57), while being top three in hits (33), at-bats (116), doubles (six), runs (12), and on-base percentage (.382). She is trailed just slightly by the freshman transfer to Kent State; Nogay hit .292 with 26 hits, two doubles and triples, a .773 OPS, and a team-leading nine stolen bases, all while committing just two errors on 76 putouts in the outfield.
Other difficult losses are center-fielder Peyton Dolejs (graduation), catcher and first baseman Marti Henkel (transfer-App. State), and starting pitchers Taylor Turner and Emma Denison (graduation). Dolejs and Henkel were the top five hitters while Turner and Denison were the top two pitchers in 2024.
The departures leave unsolved/questionable holes in at least two outfield spots, first base, and catcher depth, as well as pressure on the pitching staff to step into 21 games started.
Gardner already has inherited a few nearly penciled-in starters. Cameron Kaufman started 40 of 44 games as the premier shortstop last season slashing .234 with a .534 OPS and five stolen bases. She and catcher Ashley Chevalier should anchor the middle of the field, the now-junior hitting .207 with a .540 OPS and six hosed runners in 2024.
The outfield was also somewhat solved with the addition of Matthews, batting .310 with a 1.101 OPS in her sophomore season as a centerfielder. She has tremendous power, smacking nine homers, eight doubles, and four triples last season, adding some good speed (38 runs and six stolen bases).
On the infield, Scarlet Anderson could be a game-changer. She both pitched and hit last season, hitting a margin better than she pitched as the second-best returning hitter for BG. However, with Gardner being an ex-pitcher and pitching coach, Anderson’s pitching could leap forward with her hitting also progressing her into a true dual-threat player.
Freshmen pitchers Morgan Beckham and Sydney Marshall come into an experienced and deep pitching room, with four upperclassmen and seven total pitchers on the roster. Gardner, as a pitching specialist, says that she will experiment heavily with who gets the ball each game, saying she can and will throw a pitcher an inning if she has to.
As is the case in many seasons, BGSU softball has an extreme start. They first head down to Spartanburg, South Carolina on the weekend of Feb. 7 for two games each against USC Upstate and Monmouth as well as an early test of MAC competition against Akron before a full week off.
They next drop into Norman, Okla. the week of Feb. 21 for an Oklahoma tournament when they play Tulsa and Wichita State twice and No. 3 Oklahoma at home on their Love’s Field, a 4,200-capacity softball citadel.
The two weekends after, Gardner and Bowling Green will hit the road again to Conway, South Carolina for the Chanticleer Showdown and Bloomington, Indi. for the Hoosier Classic. The Orange and Brown will square off for two games each against UConn, Wisconsin, Coastal Carolina, Illinois-Chicago, Indiana, and Indiana-Indianapolis once.
March 14 starts the Mid-American Conference (MAC) schedule for Bowling Green against Buffalo in New York, starting the pattern of a single game on Friday and a doubleheader on Saturday. They then go on a two-week home stand, six of their 20 home games at Meserve Field.
