BGSU softball has announced their 2026 non-conference and conference schedule for the second season with head coach Michelle Gardner. Gardner led the Falcons to a 16-36 overall record and 7-19 in conference play, the first time surpassing 15 overall wins and six conference wins since 2022.
The team starts their season with five-straight road series, starting in Hampton, Va. (Queens/ Hampton) and traveling through Greeneville, South Carolina (hosted by Furman), Johnson City, Tennessee (hosted by East Tennessee State), Madeira Beach, Florida (Make It Happen Games) and Conway and Charleston, South Carolina (Coastal Carolina/Charleston Southern).
As of the current schedule, opponents have not been released for the Furman Tournament, East Tennessee State Tournament and Make It Happen Games.
The first home games for the Falcons take place on the weekend of March 13 against Central Michigan, a common Mid-American Conference (MAC) weekend-series schedule with one game at 3 p.m. on Friday and two games starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
BG alternates home and away through conference play until the weekends of April 18 and April 24, playing Northern Illinois and Massachusetts back-to-back at home on Meserve Field. They finish the season the following weekend in Oxford, Ohio, against the defending MAC regular season and tournament champions, the Miami (OH) RedHawks.
The only MAC school BG Softball does not play in 2026 is Ball State, which swept the Falcons on the road in 2025.
Gardner and the Falcons play four mid-conference-season non-conference opponents, an Ohio State single game and a Youngstown State doubleheader in the same week, as well as a Michigan single game and an Oakland doubleheader in separate weeks.
The two single games at Michigan and against Ohio State are the only power-four opponents on the schedule so far, although the slate is not yet complete. BG played five games against top-conference opponents last season, going 0-5 but taking Oklahoma (at the time defending four-straight NCAA National Championships) to eight innings before an 8-5 loss.
Bowling Green will have the same early-season schedule struggle as last season, basically living from a suitcase for the first five weeks of the season. They did the same in the first four weeks of nonconference play last season, going 5-15 through 20 games.
Gardner continues to bring her team up a mountain this season, coming into a program with only 15 wins the previous two seasons and surpassing that number by a game. She brought the team out of a consensus “worst team in the MAC” status and now looks to compete for the conference tournament in her second season in Orange and Brown.
