We are officially in the post-Lauren Boyd Era of Northwestern softball, and it is a scary, scary place.
Boyd, who graduated last May, was the heart and the engine of the 2025 Wildcat pitching staff. She pitched 125 of Northwestern’s 323 innings, the highest on the team by 36.8. Her 2.30 ERA and 1.16 WHIP were Northwestern’s best by 1.27 and 0.52 respectively. In conference play, Boyd struck out more opposing hitters than the rest of the 2025 Wildcat staff combined.
Boyd reached superhuman status during
Northwestern’s three-game stint in the NCAA tournament, allowing just a single earned run in 16 innings of work against Kentucky and No. 11 Clemson. The other NU pitchers allowed eight runs in seven innings. To be fair, one of the greatest individual performances in Northwestern history is a high bar for success.
With Lauren Boyd, Northwestern posted a respectable team ERA of 3.66, good for 10th in the Big Ten. Without Lauren Boyd, that number balloons to 6.21, the worst in the conference by almost half of a run.
That’s not to say there’s no reason for optimism. Northwestern returns every single arm who appeared in the 2025 campaign outside of Boyd, and each is a breakout candidate in their own right.
Junior Riley Grudzielanek started 31 games in her first two years in Evanston — nine more than Boyd in her own freshman and sophomore seasons — and her ERA in Big Ten play ranked seventh in the conference. Signe Dohse posted a 3.57 ERA as a redshirt first-year in 2025, and she allowed just one run in 4.1 IP against an electric Kentucky offense in the NCAA tournament. Junior Renae Cunningham threw 2.1 scoreless against No. 18 Virginia Tech. Sophomore Emma Blea was the No. 21 ranked recruit in the nation according to Extra Innings coming out of high school, and she was a key contributor in her first year in Evanston.
Then there’s true freshman Marina Mason, who led the state of Tennessee in strikeouts during a monster senior season that included a game where she fanned 24.
Given the lack of a proven ace on this year’s roster, head coach Kate Drohan will likely opt for a committee approach in 2026, and there will be ample opportunities for each member Wildcat staff to make a jump.
Here are the five names that will feature in the circle for Northwestern in 2026:
Riley Grudzielanek, Junior
2025 stats: 87.2 IP (25 appearances, 19 starts), 4.63 ERA, 1.83 WHIP, 60 SOs, 63 BBs
Grudzielanek was Northwestern’s most-used arm in 2025 outside of Boyd, and she enters 2026 as the most important piece of the Wildcat pitching staff. While Grudzielanek’s numbers over the entire 2025 campaign don’t exactly jump off the page, her stat-line in conference play leaves a lot to be excited about. I mentioned earlier that her 2.94 ERA in nine conference games was good for seventh in the Big Ten, but I want to call attention to her three complete games in six starts. When Grudzielanek is hitting her spots, she has the stuff to be the true No. 1 arm that this team needs.
However, accuracy has plagued Grudzielanek through her two years in Evanston — her 5.0 BB/7 ranked third in the Big Ten out of the 31 pitchers with more than 80 IP. Starting in a win-or-go-home NCAA tournament matchup against Kentucky, Grudzielanek walked four of the nine batters she faced and allowed four earned runs in 1.2 IP.
It goes without saying that Northwestern will need its most experienced pitcher to improve her control in 2026.
Signe Dohse, Redshirt Sophomore
2025 stats: 47.0 IP (18 appearances, five starts), 3.57 ERA, 1.68 WHIP, 26 SOs, 27 BBs
Dohse finished third in innings pitched for Northwestern in 2025 despite not appearing on the mound once during her true freshman season. The Minnesota native was a reliable arm for the ‘Cats throughout the campaign and showed a few flashes of excellence against elite opponents, including 2.2 scoreless innings against No. 8 LSU in her first collegiate appearance and a one-run, four-hit performance in 4.1 IP against Kentucky in the NCAA tournament.
Drohan showed her trust in Dohse throughout the 2025 season, mostly notably calling her number to start Northwestern’s crucial Big Ten Tournament opener against Purdue over Cunningham and Grudzielanek. I’d predict that Drohan will rotate between Dohse, Cunningham and Blea based on matchups, but Dohse is a good bet to finish second on the team in starts behind Grudzielanek.
Renae Cunningham, Junior
2025 stats: 43.0 IP (21 appearances, one start), 4.88 ERA, 1.72 WHIP, 22 SOs, 12 BBs
Cunningham was on track for a banner 2025 campaign in mid-March before a series of rocky appearances against Penn State, Michigan State and Mississippi State ballooned her ERA from 2.14 to 4.08 over the course of two weekends. There still were a fair amount of positives for Cunningham in 2025. In addition to her 2.1 scoreless innings against No. 18 Virginia Tech, she carried the load for Northwestern in two wins against Central Michigan and Rutgers, allowing just two total runs in a combined 11 innings of work.
Strikeouts have been Cunningham’s kryptonite thus far in her career, as the junior has yet to develop the elite two-strike pitch to complement her consistent and ever-accurate fastball. If Northwestern pitching coach Michelle Gascoigne can help Cunningham develop that elusive off-speed weapon, Cunningham has the accuracy to take a major leap in 2026.
Emma Blea, Sophomore
2025 stats: 20.1 IP (13 appearances, five starts), 5.51 ERA, 1.82 WHIP, 14 SOs, 18 BBs
Blea was thrown into the fire as a true first-year in 2025, making her collegiate debut against a Tennessee side that would go on to win two games in the College World Series. Her talent remained evident throughout the 2025 campaign, even if the ERA and walk numbers are a little gaudy. The hard-throwing sophomore had a handful of dominant outings, including three perfect innings against Notre Dame and a six strikeout, three inning performance against Northern Illinois. She also threw a scoreless inning against Kentucky in her postseason debut.
Expect Blea to compete for starts in 2026.
Marina Mason, true first-year
Senior year stats: 162 IP, 1.05 ERA, 339 SOs, 38 BBs
Mason’s 339 strikeouts during her senior year of high school were enough to land her a spot on the 2026 Softball America Freshman Watch List alongside her teammate Tru Medina. It’s hard not to be excited about a recruit who has a 24 strikeout performance on her resume.
It remains to be seen whether that punch-out ability will translate to the next level, but there’s definitely a world where the true first-year from Tennessee features as much or more than Blea did in her own debut season.
