BGSU softball returns for the first time in 278 days when they take on the USC Upstate Spartans for the first of five games at Cyrill Softball Stadium in Spartanburg, SC, and with head coach Michelle Gardner at the helm for her first season, the intrigue is there for the Falcons.
Bowling Green will play five games in Spartanburg, two against USC Upstate and two against Monmouth on Friday and Saturday, before rounding out the tournament with a lone Sunday game against the Akron Zips, the only Mid-American Conference (MAC) opponent the Falcons will face before they take on Buffalo on March 14.
The full weekend schedule looks like this:
Friday:
BGSU vs USC Upstate: 3 p.m.
BGSU vs Monmouth: 5:30 p.m.
Saturday:
BGSU vs Monmouth: 12:30 p.m.
BGSU vs USC Upstate: 3 p.m.
Sunday:
BGSU vs Akron: 10 a.m.
Falcon Forecast
The Falcons enter the season with only one direction to go after they were picked last in the 2025 Mid-American Conference (MAC) preseason poll, but with so many changes between the 2024 and 2025 rosters, we won’t know if that ranking is accurate until well into the season.
16 players return from the 2024 roster, with six freshmen and one transfer filling the spots left by eight departures after the 2024 season. These departures include five out of the top seven Falcons in 2024 total at-bats, with sophomore Cameron Kaufman being the only returning player with over 65 at-bats.
The pitching staff loses two of their three top pitchers, with the need for 122 of the 280 innings thrown by BG pitchers to be replaced after the departures of Emma Denison and Taylor Turner.
The junior transfer from Lake Land College comes to the Falcons after a 2024 season that earned her a spot on the All-Region XXIV First Team as a sophomore with a .310 batting average, nine home runs, and 33 RBIs for the Lakers in the NJCAA.
The outfielder will join junior Delaney Davis as the leader of a young outfield core that returns only 136 at-bats worth of 2024 experience.
Matthews’ production will be critical in improving an abysmal 2024 Falcon offense that ranked 285th out of 296 Division I teams with a .228 batting average in 2024.
The junior from Aurora, Ohio, is the only returning pitcher with more than 30 innings pitched in 2024, throwing 58.2 innings with a 6.09 earned-run average (ERA) in 16 appearances and 12 starts.
Krafcik will be the leader and the likely innings eater of a pitching staff that will depend on diversity and short outings to maintain success in 2025 with two promising freshmen in Morgan Beckham and Sydney Marshall, who will join five returning Falcon pitchers.
Watch for Krafcik to take the mound as the ace for the Falcons in 2024.
After returning from an injury that sidelined her for all but eight games of the 2024 season, the redshirt freshman returns fully healthy for a 2025 season where she will be the likely starter at the third base position.
Martin and the team are optimistic for a significant statistical improvement from 2024 that saw only a .167 average with four hits in eight games, and her form will be vital for a team that will need that extra offensive boost wherever they can get it.
USC Upstate hosts the first of three tournaments in Spartanburg, with BGSU, Monmouth, and Akron coming to town, and after winning the Big South championship in 2024, the Spartans are poised for a repeat after being ranked first in the 2025 Big South preseason poll.
The Spartans ended 30-23 overall in 2024 with a 13-5 Big South record, including a seven-game win streak in April. The team saw six players earn spots on All-Big South teams, with two players each making First, Second, and All-Freshman teams and head coach Chris Hawkins earning Big South Coach of the Year.
Sophomore Sierra Maness was named the 2025 Big South Preseason Pitcher of the Year after she earned a spot on the Big South All-Conference Second and All-Freshman teams. The 4x Big South Pitcher of the Week appeared in 30 games and made 25 starts as a freshman, ending with over 160 innings pitched and a 2.44 ERA that was good for second best in the Big South.
The birds from New Jersey enter the Spartan Classic as the eighth out of 12 teams in the CAA according to the 2025 CAA Preseason Coaches Poll after 2024, where they finished seventh with a 10-16 record in conference play and 18-33 overall.
The Hawks went 2-3 in their tournament in Spartanburg in 2024, where their two victories came against Akron while they fell to the Spartans twice on top of a 6-1 loss to Kentucky.
Junior Savannah Simons is the lone Hawk on the 2025 Preseason All-CAA Team at third base from Georgian Court University to Monmouth in 2024, where she slashed .309/.407/.382 with one home run and 18 RBIs in 48 games in 2024.
Akron will take on Bowling Green for the fifth game of both of their seasons, marking the earliest BG has played a conference game since 2007.
The Zips are coming off a 23-29 2024 season that finished with an 11-14 record in the MAC and a seventh-place finish in the standings. The Zips won two of three against the Falcons in 2024, winning the first two of a three-game series at Meserve Field before the Falcons walked off a 7-6 win on Sunday, April 7.
Infielder Sophia Wygast returns for 2025 after breaking onto the scene as an Akron freshman in 2024, earning spots on the All-MAC Second Team and All-MAC Freshman teams after slashing .308/.364/.568 with 12 home runs, ninth most in the MAC.
