Softball season is almost here.
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After Northwestern’s season ended at the Austin Regional last spring, the Wildcats are running it back in 2025 with a crew of familiar faces — albeit with an extra year of softball under their belts. Sure, no Ashley Miller, Angela Zedak or Hannah Cady slightly changes the calculus, but with a strong crop of first-years and the return of Lauren Boyd and Grace Nieto, the ‘Cats have a strong case to compete with softball’s best.
With Northwestern set to kick the season off Friday in Clearwater, Florida, here are three storylines to watch for as the Wildcats go for their fourth consecutive Big Ten regular season title.
Super sluggers
Powered by the season-long improvement of its first-year hitters, Northwestern’s offense exploded for 61 home runs in 2024 — the fifth most in a single season by the Wildcats in coach Kate Drohan’s tenure. Kansas Robinson led the charge with a team-high 11 homers, but Emma Raye’s 10 blasts came in as a close second. Kelsey Nader improved her power with eight, but Northwestern’s first-years combining for 21 home runs was a big boost to an offense that hit six fewer home runs in seven more games in 2023.
The main losses are Zedak’s 36 career home runs (nine in 2024) and Cady’s 21 career homers (four in 2024). Even then, Drohan’s offense returns 48 home runs from last season — exactly one per game from its 2024 squad.
Those 2009 and 2022 squads feel like minor outliers. As part of Northwestern’s run to the Women’s College World Series in 2022, Rachel Lewis went nuclear with 23 blasts, while the 2009 team had five players with 10-plus homers. But with 40 homers in regular season Big Ten play, the most against conference opponents since at least 2010, last season’s slugging seems like a precursor of what’s to come in 2025.
With Northwestern’s crew of sophomore sluggers having their first year of college softball under their belts, an increase in long-ball production is a relatively safe bet. Same thing with Robinson and Nader who showed major boosts in power last season. Throw in first-year Avery Garden into the mix, who, as Robinson made clear at Softball America’s Big Ten Media Days, hits bombs, and Northwestern’s lineup has major power.
The Wildcats relied heavily on the long ball in 2024, going 28-4 in games when hitting a home run, compared to 7-9 in games without one. ‘Cats fans should be thrilled with a 2024-25 roster that is shaping up to rival Nortwestern’s 1.27 home runs per game last season.
Inside the circle
It’s no secret that in recent history Northwestern has relied heavily on one pitcher for large stretches of the season, often splitting up the rest of the innings between a couple of arms. Last season was the year of Ashley Miller, the Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, who hurled 49.6% of the innings, posting a 1.58 ERA and 17-6 record. As Miller struggled finding the strike zone late, Riley Grudzielanek and Renae Cunningham picked up extra innings, including a wealth of critical work in the Austin Regional.
The three years prior were all about Danielle Williams who pitched over 50% of the innings in 2021 and 2022, before taking a slightly smaller workload after early season struggles in 2023. That was also the last season we saw from Lauren Boyd, Northwestern’s early season favorite to be the ace of the rotation in 2025.
After injury prevented Boyd from competing in 2024, she’s the veteran in a pitching staff that graduated Cami Henry last season. Of the career innings pitched on the roster, Boyd has 65.5% of them. Grudzielanek and Cunningham bring their experience from last year while sophomore Signe Dohse and senior Lauren Curry aren’t expected to see sizable roles. The true X-factor is highly touted first-year Emma Blea, Extra Innings’ No. 21 ranked player in her class. With a speedy fastball and nasty dropball, she’s got the stuff that could see her innings mount as the season moves into warmer months.
However, given Boyd hasn’t seen game action since Northwestern’s run to the Tuscaloosa Super Regional in 2023, this season’s innings split could be relatively even between Boyd and Grudzielanek as the main starters and Cunningham out of the bullpen. Blea’s obvious talent makes her a wild card who could earn a larger share of those innings as the season progresses as well. Plus, Boyd’s largest body of work came in 2023, where she racked up 27.5% of Northwestern’s innings, still well below an ace-level workload. Another point to consider is that while Miller and Williams were big strikeout pitchers, Boyd and Cunningham excel at using the defense behind them to rack up outs. That might mean balancing the usage of a strikeout-pitcher like Grudzielanek accordingly.
It’ll be interesting to monitor how coach Kate Drohan manages the innings this weekend, especially who she relies on in games against elite competition. Those decisions will likely predict who Northwestern trusts in the early going.
SOS: Strength of schedule
The best part about Northwestern softball is it never fears scheduling a litany of challenging games to boost its postseason resume. Just this weekend, Northwestern plays three teams in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll with matchups against No. 5 Tennessee, No. 8 Duke and No. 15 Missouri on deck in Clearwater. The Wildcats also face No. 9 LSU and No. 18 Virginia Tech in the Purple & Gold Challenge in Baton Rouge the following weekend. Throw in a couple other non-conference games against quality opponents like Utah and No. 21 California and a three-game home series against No. 24 Mississippi State in March, and Northwestern will have little time to iron out the kinks of its 2025 roster.
And then comes the new and improved Big Ten with its three new West Coast teams.
Even if Northwestern doesn’t play Oregon or Washington this season, those are two quality teams that improve the strength of schedule of everyone else in the conference. Not to mention a pair of series against UCLA and Nebraska and two games against Penn State in Oklahoma City which make up eight incredibly meaningful conference games against preseason NCAA Tournament contenders.
The UCLA series at the end of the season stands out. The last three games of the Big Ten schedule against the Bruins has all the makings of a classic with Big Ten regular season title, conference tournament and NCAA Tournament implications.
Although the ‘Cats dominated Big Ten play last season with a 19-3 conference record, their strength of schedule was relatively weak for a team vying to host a regional. Northwestern had zero conference games against teams that finished in the top 25 of the RPI, and only played four games against teams in that range after canceled games against Oklahoma State, Texas and Auburn. Thus, when the ‘Cats fell to Indiana at home late in the season and in the Big Ten Tournament in Iowa City (Northwestern’s only two losses to teams inside the RPI’s 26-50 slots), there weren’t enough wins against elite competition on the schedule to prop up Northwestern’s resume and secure a better regional draw.
That makes this weekend’s slew of contests, next weekend’s matchups and Northwestern’s home series against Mississippi State crucial. However, unlike previous seasons where Northwestern has had to be almost flawless in conference play (20-3 when it hosted the Evanston Regional in 2023), this year’s Big Ten has the strength where every loss might mean a tad less and ever quality win even more as the Big Ten continues to prove why although it may not be the SEC, it’s a conference deserving of a handful of postseason bids.
For Northwestern though, it’s about the potential of hosting a regional, something more than possible with the strength of its schedule assuming it can pull out some big time wins.