The Case Western Reserve University softball team has a promising conference season ahead of them. The 2024 UAA Champions came off of a record 40-9 season and a NCAA World Series appearance and are currently 9-5 after the last couple weeks of their regular season.
Before spring break, the squad participated in the 2025 NFCA Leadoff Classic Tournament hosted in Columbus, Georgia. The tournament welcomed 24 teams with each team playing a total of six teams over the course of the three-day tournament.
The Spartans faced off against No. 1-ranked East Texas Baptist University, No. 2-ranked Linfield University, No. 5-ranked Belhaven University, No. 6-ranked Tufts University, No. 10-ranked Trine University and DePauw University. The then-No. 7-ranked Spartans only fell to Trine 1-2 and finished with a standing of 5-1, upsetting ETBU, Linfield, Belhaven and Tufts.
Graduate student KaiLi Gross shared her favorite moments of the tournament.
“There are two games that come to mind. Beating the number one team in the country. It was a later game … we just used everything that we could. [During] the Belhaven game, we were down by 10 runs and it took a lot from us to come back from that, but like I said, our energy [is] something that we really like to pride ourselves in,” Gross said.
The game against Belhaven was particularly rewarding for the Spartans as they not only avenged their loss to the Blazers in the NCAA finals last year but also had a stunning comeback after a 10-0 deficit in the third inning.
Over spring break, the team traveled to California for a series of games. Beginning Sunday, March 9, CWRU split their doubleheader against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, with both teams taking a 5-4 win. The following day, the Spartans split yet another doubleheader with a 6-3 victory over Bethel University and fell 2-4 to Illinois Wesleyan University. On Wednesday, March 12, the Spartans lost both games to the 2025 NFCA Leadoff Classic Champions No. 9-ranked University of Redlands but made their comeback with a pair of wins on Thursday against Haverford College and Whittier College.
“We did have some adversity in California this past week, but we were able to have a team meeting and kind of understand all of our teammates better. I really think that helped us become closer, and then we were able to win our last two games because of that,” Gross commented. “Motivation can come and go, but the habits that we built in the off season that we’ve been training for at practice and putting our full effort into are what’s going to carry us through the highs and lows.”
Following their doubleheader on Thursday, Gross surpassed the previous program record of 218 career hits set by former Spartan Molly O’Brien. Gross currently has an impressive 0.511 batting average with a total of 4 home runs this season.
“It was a really great feeling because my team and I work really hard. For me, I like working hard every day, doing extra reps and everything, so it kind of just spoke to that volume. It was one of my goals, personally, to reach and break those records, so it was kind of a relieving feeling,” Gross said.
Gross also commented on the team’s overall goals for the approaching conference season and post season.
“[The goal is to] obviously to win the UAA conference. We’re gonna have a tough conference season with WashU and Emory, but just relying on each other and having fun, I think, is gonna make us successful, and then winning the conference, then going on to postseason. Making the world series would also be an awesome way to end the season,” Gross concluded.
On Friday, the Spartans will begin UAA play with the first game against Washington University in St. Louis slated to begin at 4 p.m. The Bears are currently ranked No. 25 with an overall standing of 13-4.