Continuing on our journey through the Mountain West softball teams, we have the New Mexico Lobos, a squad that finished 2025 in a tie for last in conference play with the CSU Rams. The Lobos’ softball program
is certainly not like their basketball or track teams, as Lobo softball has finished with a winning record in just two of the last 22 seasons, and has not had a winning season since 2015.
In 2025, fourth-year head coach Nicole Orgeron led the Lobos to their best season under her watch, finishing with a bizarre record of 21-30-1 due to a darkness-shortened contest against St. John’s in the Houston Classic. The Lobos were mid-tier in the MWC in most stats, but had a 6-16 collapse in conference play to end the season, bringing the Lobos from a record hovering around the ever-elusive .500 mark to one firmly in the conference’s basement. Coming off the back of a horrible 16-38 season in 2024, a record within 10 games of .500 is much appreciated, but New Mexico is hoping for much better in 2026.
With a retooled roster that includes a surprising number of returning production, considering UNM’s standing in the softball world, a winning record may be a legitimate possibility this season for the Lobos. Let’s see what they will have to do to actually pull it off.
Schedule
The Lobos kick off their season at the Getterman Classic in Waco, Texas. Here, they will face host Baylor, then preseason No. 24/23 Mississippi State, Wichita State, and two games against Northwestern State. The Bulldogs are the best team here, as the Bulldogs went to the Tournament a year ago, and have acquired a great deal of talent in the transfer portal, including former Utah State star Tatum Silva. This will be a stiff challenge for a Lobos team that performed well in nonconference action last season.
Next, the Lobos travel to Youngsville, Louisiana, to take on the Mardi Gras Mambo, hosted by Southeastern Louisiana. Here, UNM will face Louisiana Tech, SELA, Northwestern State again, Nicholls, and Sam Houston. The host Lady Lions won 50 games a year ago, made the NCAA Tournament, and took down regional host #10 LSU before falling to #19 Nebraska in the championship series. Louisiana is a historically softball-rich state, so any games played here will be tough to stack up against.
The Lobos will next play four straight nonconference away games outside of the realm of MTEs. First, the Lobos will travel to El Paso, Texas, for a matchup with Rio Grande Valley rival and future Mountain West Conference member UTEP. The Miners may have only gone 22-28 last year, but the did, notably, sweep the Lobos, so New Mexico is dying for revenge. Afterwards, the Lobos head to Abilene, Texas, for a three-game series against Abilene Christian. The Wildcats went just 15-38 a year ago, so this should be a winnable series for New Mexico.
Next, it’s time for the Lobos to come home, as their next MTE will be the UNM Invitational. Here, the Lobos will host UTEP, Tarleton State and Houston Christian, the latter two will each face the Lobos twice. Tarleton State was the WAC runner-up in 2025, going 36-22. They only fell in 11 innings to now-MWC member Grand Canyon to miss the Tournament, meaning the Texans are quite the tough out.
Next is the Lobos’ final MTE, the Jaguar Classic in Mobile, Alabama. Here, the Lobos will face ranked Mississippi State two more times, along with two against Samford and one against host South Alabama. Having three nonconference games against the same ranked team in the same season is a very rare opportunity. If the Lobos could manage to beat the Bulldogs once, it would be a massive win for a program that hasn’t beaten a ranked team since Coach Orgeron’s first season, 2023, against #19 Oregon State.
The Lobos will have one final nonconference matchup, a home-and-home with in-state rival New Mexico State surrounding the Lobos’ first conference matchup. The Aggies beat the Lobos in their lone matchup a year ago, so refer to my analysis of UTEP for a summary of how New Mexico is feeling entering these games.
The Lobos will have five home conference series and four road conference series. At home, the Lobos will face GCU, San Diego State, UNLV, Fresno State, and Utah State. On the road, New Mexico will face Colorado State, Boise State, Nevada, and San Jose State. The Lobos’ conference slate overall worked out for them very well; only playing Nevada on the road out of the three preseason contenders is certainly good fortune.
Hitting Core
Despite the end-of-season collapse, the Lobos ranked out as middle-of-the-road in most statistical categories in 2025. One such category was batting average, where UNM ranked in a tie for 5th with Fresno State, averaging .278 at the plate.
This average was heavily carried by senior Ashley Archuleta, whose average of .404 and OPS of 1.096 both handily led the Lobos, placing her well inside the top 10 in the Mountain West in each. Archuleta’s graduation will undoubtedly hurt the Lobos, but perhaps not as much as you would expect. Incredibly, despite their recent track record, the Lobos are one of the only teams in the conference who got through the transfer portal near-completely unscathed.
The Lobos’ four next-best hitters were Allie Williams (.339), Jessica Deleon (.338, led UNM in RBIs), DeNae Vasquez-Dickson (.331) and Miracle McKenzie (.275, led UNM in home runs), all of whom are returning for the 2026 season. McKenzie, in particular, is one to watch out for, as while she may have been inconsistent in 2025, she was only a freshman, and she still led the largely longball-less Lobos in home runs with five. I would expect her to have developed over the offseason under the guidance of former Lobo star Rachael Hathoot and the recently hired Ariel Fifita, most recently the leading hitter for conference rival Utah State. If she has, the foundation is already there to produce a serious hard-hitting threat.
The Lobos did not make any additions to the roster through the transfer portal, so that leaves us with their freshman class, which does have some intruiging prospects. First, Jasmyn Lloyd, who took a medical redshirt for UNM in 2025. Lloyd is a home run threat by trade, hitting 106 dingers in high school. Another is true freshman Caitlin Benningfield, a dual-threat prospect who hit just below .500 and pitched an ERA just above 1.00 in high school (there were conflicting reports on her exact stats, so I went with a general consensus).
The Lobos may be missing their previous leader at the plate, but UNM is largely unscathed outside of Archuleta, so I would expect the overall group to become a more consistent, well-rounded unit in 2026.
Pitching Core
Whereas the Lobos went through the transfer portal unscathed in their hitting core, the same can unfortunately not be said about their pitching staff, the main group under the guidance of Coach Orgeron. A year ago, UNM had the 5th-ranked pitching staff in the conference, with a team-wide ERA of 3.99 while striking out 271 total batters, ranking second in the conference, only behind Nevada (296).
McKenna Guest was the Lobos’ best pitcher in 2025, posting an ERA of 3.15 with a team-leading 139 strikeouts, which ranked second in the conference behind Nevada’s Hailey McLean (149). Guest will be returning to Albequerque for her junior season, a huge win for the Lobos’ staff.
The same cannot be said for Guest’s rotation-mate, true freshman Natalie Fritz. Fritz may have only recorded a win-loss record of 5-10, but she largely was not the reason for those losses, posting an ERA of 3.69 in just over 100 innings, recording 78 strikeouts. Fritz made the decision to transfer prior to her sophomore season, though instead of going to a larger program, she instead wound up at new conference rival Grand Canyon, which will almost certainly leave a sour taste in the mouths of her former teammates. As the aforementioned Hailey McLean can tell you after getting lit up in her first starts against her former Aggies squad last year, betraying your team by transferring to a rival school often does not bode well when you face your old squad.
In the meantime, the Lobos had to get to work replacing Fritz in the offseason. No other Lobo pitcher threw for more than 35 innings in 2025, and with limited production from all of them in their limited playing time, it would likely be best to look at the freshmen.
I would expect the aforementioned Benningfield to get a good amount of time in the circle this season, especially helpful since her dual-threat nature means more time to find a consistent replacement for UNM’s former designated player, Archuleta. For traditional pitching-only prospects, the most intruiging from a glance is Arianna Capek, who recorded over 600 strikeouts in high school, and had remarkably similar stats and accomplishments as did Fritz, who did quite well for herself right away as a Lobo.
This unit is a bit hard to gauge with such little collegiate production, but it does seem to be a sound unit overall, especially with Coach Orgeron’s track record of efficiently developing pitching prospects right away. No matter what, everything should go well for UNM as long as they don’t have to rely on the rest of their rotation from a year ago, as all remaining pitchers on the Lobo roster combined for a total ERA of 6.25.
Prediction
2025 Result: 21-30-1 (6-16 MWC), Regular Season: 8th, Missed Conference and NCAA Tournaments
2026 Prediction: 27-24 (12-13 MWC), Make Conference Tournament, Miss NCAA Tournament
This may be a surprise to some, but I actually believe that this Lobos squad will make it to the MWC Tournament. Why? Well, I think the Lobos will finally break past the .500 mark this season, and while they will go slightly below .500 in conference, both will be enough to lift the Lobos into the top 6 in the conference due to its top-heavy nature.
A year ago, fourth-seeded Boise State and 5th-seeded Utah State made it in with 11-11 records, and the lowly 9-13 Spartans were the last team in. This year, I am fairly confident that the top three teams (GCU, Nevada, SDSU) will separate themselves from the pack quite considerably in conference play, and Fresno State will be in a tier by themselves, just above .500 in conference. This leaves the Lobos to duke it out with the last three teams in from last year, all of whom got ravaged by the transfer portal in a way that the Lobos did not.
The Lobos’ schedule is also rather favorable. Yes, New Mexico is inexplicably tied to the hip with Mississippi State, and the Louisiana schools they must face will always be tough, but the rest of their nonconference slate is rather simple. Once they get to conference play, the losses will definitely start stacking up, but getting a draw of five home series and four away, with the only tough road series being in Reno, said series only being two games, I see the Lobos being able to finally get over the hump and making the dance. Will they go anywhere after that? I don’t think so, but who knows? Maybe we can see some Lobo magic this season.
Next up, we will take a look at the San Diego State Aztecs, dropping January 30 at 8 a.m. PST.
