A SEASON TO REMEMBER: Inside Owls' Softball's 39-3 Season

Westfield State University softball enjoyed a record-breaking season in 2026, posting 39 wins – the most ever by the program, and the most for any Westfield State team in a season – en route to a 39-3 overall record, a 15-1 mark in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference, MASCAC regular-season and tournament titles, and Owls' softball's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1983.

"I think we all knew at the beginning of the season this this could be a really good team," said Owls' head coach Joe Hough.   "You know, having all that experience back, having people that have been in the system, this is being their fourth year, and they were all seniors all at the same time. So knowing that, I thought we could definitely have a successful season."

"Looking at all the things we did the year before, you know, we figured there was going to be dropoffs in some of the stats and some of the things that we did -  and it was just incredible to see that there was no drop off.  We lost pitcher of the year [graduating Kat Canty in 2025] and we got the pitcher of the year again this year."

"We hit 28 home runs [in 2025] and I thought, there's no way we'll ever break that, but we got even  better at those things that we did really, really well. It was pretty remarkable. But again, we always had high expectations."

THE FLORIDA SWING

Those expectations were justified  - right out of the gate, as the Owls didn't just rattle off 13 straight wins on their spring-break week trip to Naples and Fort Myers, Fla., but started a cavalcade of standout individual and team performances and records falling.

The Owls tossed two no-hitters on the trip, the first a combined no-no from first-years Isabella Schaeffer and Cassidy Wallner in a 15-0 win over Alfred (NY) State, and then Schaeffer capped the trip with a second no-hitter over St. Joseph's (Brooklyn) on the final day of the trip.

The Owl bats were blistering as well, scoring 101 runs in the last nine games of the spring trip, bolstering an offense that would finish the year ranked sixth in the country in NCAA D3 at 8.17 runs per game.

"We did all that [in Florida] staying true to what we do here at Westfield State in our program," said Hough.  "Not that we do equal playing time, but we told the freshmen, for loss, win, whatever, it doesn't matter -you are going to see some time at Florida because we want to see what you have to do, and get you some valuable experience going into the season, get you valuable experience going into next year."

"It would have been easy to say we're senior heavy and we're going to run the same lineup. But we stayed true to what we do here at Westfield, which is always developing for the next year. And that's why the freshmen last year were ready to go this year"

"So coming back from Florida, obviously we were ecstatic with the record, but we were more ecstatic that we did it 'the Westfield Way' and got people in and started all those freshmen. And you know, that's when you say - like, wow, even our freshmen are doing really well. And we're holding our own against a team that's juniors and seniors."

BACK UP NORTH

The Owls' win streak continued when they returned home to Westfield, sweeping a doubleheader from Worcester State, 10-1 and 4-1 behind a pair of standout pitching performances from starters Joss Mettey and Angelina Vartuli, both of whom tossed complete games.

That duo would prove to be dominant throughout the season with Vartuli, a sophomore, earning the 2026 MASCAC pitcher of the year award and first team all-conference honors, after finishing the year with a 14-1 record, four saves and a 0.92 ERA to rank fifth in the nation in that category and shatter the Owls' single-season record.  She pitched 99 innings, giving up just 75 hits and striking out 83 hitters.

Mettey was a second team all-conference pick, posting a 13-1 record with one save, and walking just 13 hitters in 75.1 innings.

As a group, Owls pitchers recorded a team ERA of 1.97 , the best since 1982 when Westfield went to the College World Series with  1.71 ERA.

"Obviously our pitchers were incredible this year," said Hough.  "But I think the biggest thing, and we say that to them all the time, we said it to our pitchers last year. that it's all complimentary, you know? We expect our pitchers to throw the ball over the plate, challenge hitters, stay in the zone as much as you possibly can. And the reason we can tell them to do that is because we have a great defense, and then hopefully we'll score you seven or eight runs."

"Having Tom St. Louis come in, a new pitching coach, which took those duties away from me, which then I could concentrate on our defense, and hitting, that made a huge difference," added Hough.  "He's also great with all the different personalities that there are in pitching.  Obviously, our pitchers work so hard. You know, they work hard in the off-season. They do all the work on their own. But then they really bought into our system of, you don't need to strike everybody out, just don't hurt ourselves, and, you know, let them hit it. We'll make the plays for you, trust your defense, and then our offense will score you. So you know we'll score you some runs."

STREAKING . . .  for 26 Games!

The Owls momentum continued through the northern part of the schedule, winning 26 straight games to open the season – the second-longest winning streak in the country behind national #1-ranked Virginia Wesleyan (which opened the year 50-0 before eventually falling in the NCAA tournament).

The 26-game win streak vaulted the Owls into the national conversation, as they earned a ranking in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association/GoRout Top 25 poll for the first time.  Westfield would rise as high as 21^st in the poll before the season was over.   The Owls also fared well in the NCAA's NPI rankings – the mathematical rankings which are used to select the national tournament field.   Westfield was as high as eighth in the NPI when the first rankings were released in mid-April.

ALL GOOD THINGS MUST END

The Owls 26-game win streak finally came to end on April 18 at Sullivan Field, dropping the opener of a twinbill to Framingham State by a 7-3 final, but the Owls were undaunted, launching three home runs in the nightcap en route to a 6-1 win and what would become a new 13-game winning streak.

Sarah Hough, Hannah Wodecki, and Mia Alfonso hit the three home runs – that trio of seniors led what was a potent Owls offense all season long, and staged an incomparable three-horse-race to break 15 season and career offensive records for the Owls - often swapping the top spot as the season went on and the hits, doubles, home runs, and runs batted in mounted.

"We always tried to stay in the moment, said coach Hough.  "And then there were parts, even after each game, you know, we were getting like, all right, this is getting a little crazy. Like, this is nuts."

"We always attributed to 'we are playing Westfield State softball,' and the amazing part is we haven't not had a game where we didn't play Westfield State softball. That's usually where losing comes in or, getting beat is when you walk away from that game and say, well, we just made errors, we chased pitches. We weren't disciplined - we got away from what we normally do … but for 26 games, we really didn't hurt ourselves, and we really put pressure on the other team, and we just stayed the course and for, you know, whatever it was, 26 times in a row, we stayed true to who we were, and we did not falter from that."

"it was getting a little crazy," said coach Hough.  "Even just locally, news people coming down and obviously it's good for the program. It's good for recruiting. It's good for celebrating the people that we did. It just made it harder as a coaching staff to say, 'stay in the moment, stay in the moment, stay in the moment.'  It just made it harder. So, after that game, after the loss, which, again, was the one game in that whole streak where we did not play Westfield State Ball ... that was the one game that, you know, we didn't do it."

"And I thought it was actually a positive,"  Hough continued. "So when we huddled after that 1st game, all smiles saying, like, this is actually a relief, because now we can just get back to what we normally do, live in the moment … we've got to just concentrate on each other and concentrate on what we're doing and then come back that next game and win that."

Despite the long winning streak, the MASCAC was an extremely competitive league this season, and the Owls went into the final weekend of the season needing to win at least one game at Salem State to clinch the regular season title and the right to host the  MASCAC Tournament.

"There are very good players in this league," said Hough.  "There's a lot of division 2, maybe even some division 1 players that are playing because what state schools offer in terms of how we balance your education. So there's a lot of talent. Obviously, there is a lot of talent on our team. They had many different options, could have gone in many different directions. But like I said, they chose Westfield State. They chose what we do here. They chose the climate, the atmosphere, the school. But yeah, …  that's what we always talk about, is, you know, just live in the moment, and we'll see what happens at the end."

The Owls swept the doubleheader at Salem to seal the conference's regular season title and the right to host the conference tourney.

Westfield finally got the monkey off its back in the conference tournament.  The program had made the championship game on nine occasions, and suffered a series of one-run and heart-breaking losses prior to this year.   Under Hough, the Owls hosted the 2024 tournament at Sullivan Field, and dropped a pair of games to Framingham in the championship round.   In 2025, the Owls again won the league and had the opportunity to host, but a deluge forced the games to be pushed back a day and moved to the artificial turf at Framingham, and the Owls dropped two games to be eliminated in the semifinals after suffering a rash of injuries at the wrong time.

2026 would prove to be the Owls year, once again hosting at Sullivan Field, and this time the weather and the softball gods cooperated, as Westfield State took the short route through the tournament, dispatching MCLA, 8-0 in a run-rule win in the quarterfinals as Vartuli spun a no-hitter and Hough homered twice and Wodecki once to power the win.

Westfield blitzed #2 seed Worcester State 9-1 in five innings in the semifinals behind a pair of home runs from Mia Alfonso and a complete game from Mettey.

And finally, the Owls walked off with the MASCAC title when first year outfielder Lyla Dwyer singled home Allyssa Slack from second base for the game-winning run in a 1-0, nine-inning win over the Lancers in the championship game.  Tournament MVP Vartuli tossed a complete game, striking out six while allowing just six hits.

"To finally get to host  MASCAC at our place … to finally get to do that in front of our fans, and to win that game the way we won it  was pretty exciting," said Hough.

 Westfield drew the top-seed in the Bethlehem, Pa. regional, joining host Moravian College, Bowdoin, and SUNY-Cortland in the four-team bracket.

The Owls' success came with plenty of acclaim on campus, as they headed to the NCAA's with a 38-1 record.    With the softball team hitting the road for the tournament – which would be played at the same time as graduation, the Westfield State administration put together a special graduation ceremony for the Owls' graduates on Tuesday before the team departed – with Mackenzie Mike, Ella Malanson, Sarah Hough and Mia Alfonso receiving their degrees in front of a packed crowd of faculty, staff, family and friends, and TV News coverage in the Scanlon Banquet Hall.  One of the Owls tournament games was shown as a 'live look-in' on the big screen at the WSU undergraduate commencement at the Mass Mutual Center.

The Owls got off to a fast start in the tournament, with Rylie Camacho and Hannah Wodecki blasting first-inning home runs against Cortland in the opener, on the way to a 2-1 win.

Westfield got a standout pitching performance from Schaeffer on the second day of the tournament, as she tossed an extra-inning complete game as Moravian and the Owls went to extra-innings tied at 1-1 before the Greyhounds would push across the winning run in the bottom of the eighth.

The magical season came to a conclusion in the elimination game on day two, as Cortland extracted a measure of revenge, scoring a 2-0 win as the Red Dragons made a third-inning home run from Kayla Santo stand up, as Gianna Endieveri shut down the Owls offense on just four hits – the only time the Owls offense was shut out all year.

"The biggest thing this team did all year, and I attribute it to the all the coaches being all on the same page, is just living in the moment," said Hough.  "Living in the moment, even when we had that streak, it was always, inning-one, inning-two, inning-three, you know, win those innings. Don't worry about the results, just stay in the moment. And I thought they did that really, really well."

The Offense Never Rests

The Owls set team records for wins in a season, Runs (343), RBI, 305, Walks, 153    (31 more than the previous record in 1987), and Home Runs, 38   (10 more than 2025).

Sarah Hough set the Owls career record for at bats with 491, leading an absolute barrage on the Owls record book.

Sarah set the program's career record for hits with 184, followed by Hannah with 183 and Mia with 164 – all of which broke previous record mark of 161.

Virtually the same scenario happened with doubles where Sarah had 46 career two-base hits, Hannah 42, and Mia 39 which broke the record 32 set by Maddy Atkociatis '18.

In career home runs it was Wodecki who set a new mark with 18, where Hough and Alfonso's 17 merely tied the record set by Sarah Bingham '25 a year earlier.

In RBI it was Hannah that graduates with the career record of 127, with Sarah (121) and Mia (116), again all broke the previous record of 104 set by Atkocaitis.

[Editor's note:   To have three players in one class breaking so many records one on top of the other is truly mind-blowing for a program that has an established 50+ year history – typically you might be tracking one or two players' accomplishments in one or two categories – not three all breaking the records in four different categories at once!]

Hough set the single season record for home runs with 11, Wodecki set the single season mark with 18 doubles, with Hough and Kassidy LaTour each hitting 17 to tie the previous record mark.

Hough's 53 RBI and Latour's 42 were two of the best three seasons in program history – behind only Wodecki's 56 from 2024.

And junior centerfielder Arielle Ostman set a record with a perfect 1.000 stolen base percentage at 22 for 22 this season – and is on track for the career mark as she's yet to be caught in 36 attempts through three years.

Westfield placed seven players on the All-Conference team, as Hough was named the league's player of the year, and first team SS. Alfonso was a first team selection at catcher, along with OF LaTour, 3B Wodecki, UT Camacho and pitchers Vartuli and Mettey.   Joe Hough was named the league's coach of the year for a third straight year.

Alfonso and LaTour were second team All-Region selections in NFCA Region II, with Hough and Wodecki netting third-team all region.

Wodecki's numbers are all the more impressive when you add in her first-year stats (from Division II) Franklin Pierce, so she finished with collegiate totals of 216 career hits, 47 doubles and 19 home runs.

Unfortunately for the Owls, Sarah Hough, Alfonso and Wodecki will all be lost to graduation.

"Well, first of all, I hope that five-year extension goes in," joked coach Hough about possible NCAA legislation.  "Everybody gets extra. That would be wonderful. I think  they are three competitive people.  We don't talk about any of the [records]  you just mentioned in practice, in games, in season. Were they all looking at this stuff on their own? Probably. But  they quickly realized that, you know, Sarah having Hannah behind her means that Sarah's going to see some pretty good pitches, because you do not want to walk Sarah to get to Hannah, and then if you decide to walk Hannah or pitch around her, then you've got Mia and then Kassidy and Slack and Caroline O'Donnell and just keep going down the list.

Latour's year was not to be overshadowed by the sensational senior class – splitting time between the outfield and catching, she posted a team best .440 batting average and a .738 slugging percentage, and will likewise do damage to the Owls' record books next season.

"One of our rivals that I'm friends with would say 'I've got 5 days to figure out how to get through Murderers Row", he called it [in reference to the legendary 1927 Yankees lineup that featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and went by the same moniker], said Hough.

Two reasons for the Owls success can be attributed to their depth and flexibility and their relative good health over the course of the season, where none of the starting lineup missed an extended period of time with an injury, and the underclassmen were ready and contributed when called upon, whether in the field or the pitching circle.

"A lot of times people look at our roster size," said coach Hough.  "You know, by the end, we were carrying 24. But that speaks to the to the people that we also go after. It's not for everybody. .. the culture is team first, team first."

"We talked to [our underclassmen], about, the seniors that were there, the Mias, and the Sarahs, and how they came in as freshmen. And you had great players like Louie (Alyssa Clark '23), and people that they sat behind or learned from.

"And they all, we don't want to say paid their dues -  because if you're a freshman and you're the best option, you're going to play - but the fact that we had such a great team and we were so, talented that it would have been really easy for those freshmen to be discouraged … But,  if you have a really good culture and you're doing things the right way, which is to enjoy every single moment of it, have fun - having those freshmen, having those role players, on board is important to having success, we say it to them every day."

"It can be the simplest thing," said Hough.  "We have routinely 5 pitchers pitching at practice. That means you need to have 5 catchers catching at practice. So some people's role was, besides working on your normal skills, come catch a bullpen. But if we didn't have those people catching bullpens, then those pitchers would not be ready, and we'd have the same two catchers catching every single bullpen.

 So all those things contributed to a successful season and those role players were just as important as the starters in most scenarios," said Hough.

WHAT'S NEXT

Coach Hough knows he has some big shoes to fill from his graduating class, and on the heels of a historic 39-3 season.

" Yeah, I look forward to the challenges,", said Hough. "I look forward to the challenges of who we're bringing in, who's going step up for our team."

"I think we're going to maybe have, a transition to a different type of offense, which I'm excited about.   Everything is a learning experience – when we got to the regionals, the wind was blowing in 20 miles an hour.  And you know the analytics say bunt, but then you know the player at the plate has a half dozen or more home runs, and maybe it was tough to get away from the idea that a 3-run home run was going to be more than enough offense."

"You could sit there and say, I'm going to be stuck in my ways, and we're still going to try to swing for it every single day, or we can transition to, 'we are going to learn how to bunt better', and we are going to.  Everybody's going to know the bunt sign this year. Just because we might have to use it."

"Everyone's going to expect that losing those seniors is going to be detrimental to our program, and I'm excited about proving everybody wrong."