In this new age of conference realignment, one move that got talked about quite a bit in Mountain West circles was the early addition of the Grand Canyon Lopes for the 2025-26 season onward. While said
move created a lot of division between fans of departing schools and those of schools staying in the Mountain West, what snuck under the radar was the fact that adding GCU will single-handedly turn this season of Mountain West softball into arguably the most competitive in the conference’s history.
In 2021, the Lopes finished just 19-30, firmly placing them deep in the cellar of the WAC, having never reached the NCAA Tournament in their history. After the season, the Lopes hired a new head coach, former Texas Tech skipper Shanon Hays, who had become the Red Raiders’ winningest coach in program history before he resigned unexpectedly in 2014. In the four seasons the Lopes have played since, their lowest win total in a season is 39.
The Lopes enter the Mountain West having easily won the last four WAC regular season and tournament crowns, having reached as far in the NCAA Tournament as the regional championship against #6 UCLA in 2024. GCU has become a regular prescence in the Top 25, and enter this season as the 29th-ranked team in the polls, the highest out of any MWC team. Hays signed a massive contract extension to stay in Phoenix in the offseason, so neither he, nor most of the players who led GCU to a 47-8 record a year ago, are going anywhere.
All this is to say that the Lopes are the clear favorites to win a MWC title in their very first season in the conference. Let’s go over what they will have to do in order to make that recently unimaginable scenario a reality.
Schedule
The good thing about being such a successful team in recent years is that you can often host the majority of your MTEs. That certainly is the case for the Lopes, who will not have to leave the state of Arizona for the first month of the season.
The season kicks off with the GCU Kickoff Classic. Here, the Lopes will face Southern Utah twice, Weber State, and finish with a doubleheader against Santa Clara. Weber State and Santa Clara both reached the NCAA Tournament last year, with the latter actually being GCU’s opponent in the Tucson Regional Elimination Game, one which the Lopes won before falling to host Arizona. The Broncos will surely be hungry for revenge, I expect this to be a good challenge for the Lopes to kick off their season.
The Lopes’ next tournament is the GCU Invite, where they will face Northern Colorado twice, Sacramento State, South Dakota, and Harvard. In 2025, Harvard was the best of these four teams, going 26-13 before falling in the Ivy League Tournament to Princeton. This should be a bit of an easier tournament for GCU.
Next, the Lopes host the Purple Classic, where they will play in six games, as opposed to the usual five. These games will be against San Diego, North Florida, two games against Montana, and two games against UC Santa Barbara. San Diego and Montana will most likely be pushovers, Montana especially coming off of a dreadful 8-42 season, but UC Santa Barbara and North Florida are in the same league of competition as the Lopes. Both teams made the NCAA Tournament a year ago, with both ending their seasons by being run-ruled by their regional’s host in their respective championship games. UNF was the better of the two, going 47-15. This will be a fun event for the Lopes.
GCU will then stay home once again for their final home MTE, the GCU/ASU Classic. All of their games will be played in Phoenix once again, and their opponents will be Minnesota, CSU Bakersfield, Wisconsin, UC Riverside, and two games against Eastern Illinois. The two Big Ten teams are obviously the most notable matchups, with Wisconsin having the best overall record at 33-21, but Eastern Illinois was actually the best team out of the four last year, as the Panthers won the Ohio Valley Conference before being run-ruled in each of their Tournament games, finishing the year with a 34-22 record.
Finally, the Lopes will leave Arizona for the first time in the season when they travel to San Diego, California, for their final MTE, the San Diego Tournament. Here, they will have rematches with Wisconsin and hosts San Diego, along with a game against Princeton and two against Notre Dame. Games against the Fighting Irish may excite some, but Notre Dame softball is actually quite bad. Wisconsin is the best team out of the teams the Lopes will face here, but once again, these teams should not be much of a threat to a team of Grand Canyon’s caliber.
Once the Lopes start conference play, they will have a total of three nonconference matchups. These will be their three toughest nonconference games of the season, taking on preseason #20/19 Oklahoma State at home, #18/21 Arizona on the road, and #RV/RV Arizona State at home. These will be the best opportunities for the Lopes to build their Top 25 and Tournament resumes.
In conference, the Lopes’ first Mountain West schedule gave them one more road series than home. At home, the Lopes will face San Jose State, Boise State, Nevada, and UNLV. On the road, GCU will face New Mexico, Utah State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Colorado State. Conference play has not been tough for GCU during the last few seasons, and this schedule doesn’t look to be too bad at first glance. Playing projected contender Nevada at home is certainly fortuitous, but the Wolf Pack has made a bit of a habit of winning season series on the road against conference title contenders. As for their road matchups, their series in San Diego will have a huge part in deciding who wins the Mountain West, and the Aztecs seldom lose at home. Fresno State on the road could be sneaky tough as well, but everybody else won’t be able to put up much of a fight.
This is a relatively easy schedule for a school of GCU’s caliber, especially before they get into conference play. Once they do, it looks a lot tougher, but still looks to be manageable. Either way, GCU will quickly reveal what kind of team they are, and if they will dominate this conference just like they did the WAC.
Hitting Core
GCU is the first team I have covered that did not lose the majority or all of their best players from last season. That is obviously good news for them, but is an incredibly terrifying prospect for their new conference mates.
Leading the way for GCU is their all-world utility infielder, now-junior Savannah Kirk. A season ago, Kirk was the second-best hitter in the entire country, hitting a completely ridiculous .505, a mark only surpassed by Marist’s Haley Ahr, who, notably, also stayed at her school for 2026. As if Kirk wasn’t dangerous enough at the plate, Kirk was also second in the NCAA in stolen bases, going 50-for-50 on her attempts. Kirk is not a power hitter by any means, but she has near-pinpoint accuracy with her bat and is lightning fast, creating an unstoppable threat to every team pointlessly attempting to defend her.
The scariest part of GCU’s 47-win season from a year ago is the fact that they had an extremely young core, all of which has been retained. Now-senior Emily Gonzalez was second on the team with a .383 average, a team-high 13 homers, and a team-high OPS of 1.196. Now-sophomore Jada Cooper hit .364, and was right behind Gonzalez with 12 homers and an OPS of 1.172. Now-sophomore Willa Ford hit .357 in her extended action towards the end of the season, serving as the fourth member of the Lopes’ hitting core that exceeded an OPS of 1.000.
Seniors Mia Weckel and Makaiya Gomez were key contributors last year, with Gomez being both the team’s, and the WAC’s, leader in RBIs with 50. Both have since graduated, but far be it for anyone to assume Grand Canyon doesn’t have ready-to-go replacements for both.
One is Sydney McCray, a former recruit by the Florida Gators who hit .326 and stole 17 bases last year in her first season in purple. Another is Salt Lake Community College transfer Ellie Pond, who was the SWAC Player of the Year and a D-II 2nd Team All-American in her freshman year, impressing enough to attract the attention of a D-I program quickly on the rise. Another possible contributor is redshirt freshman Haley Wilkinson, who only had 8 at-bats all of last season, but had been injured for most of the season and clearly has the coaching staff’s trust, given her ability to get playing time in the rare instances where she wasn’t hurt.
This is a very deep hitting core, and there are around a half dozen freshmen that could easily make an impact that I did not mention, along with some starters from last year that struggled slightly but could improve. Good luck stopping these Lopes.
Pitching Core
Somehow, though, GCU’s pitching staff may have somehow been better than their hitting core last year, if you could believe it. GCU put out a team ERA of an absurd 1.94, which only ranked behind Tennessee and Texas Tech.
The Lopes were led by Meghan Golden, who surrendered an ERA of just 1.06 in 2025, which was the best mark in the country. Golden graduated after the season, much to the delight of all teams unfortunate enough to try and hit against her, and was immediately signed by the OKC Spark of the fledgling Athletes Unlimited Softball League.
Unfortunately for GCU opponents, that’s where the good news ends, because both of Golden’s rotation-mates are still with the Lopes. First, now-senior Taryn Batterton surrendered an ERA of 2.14 in her 114.1 innings of play, and now-junior Maggie Place gave up an ERA of 2.23 across her 84.2 innings. On top of those two still being here, the Lopes may have found themselves another future star in the circle: now-sophomore Oakley Vickers. Vickers was in the circle for 47.1 innings in 2025, where she gave up an ERA of just 1.77, striking out 40 batters, which was nearly half the benchmark set by Batterton (89) in just over a third of the playing time. Vickers already looks like a bona fide stud.
None of this even gets into either the freshman class or transfer class, which each have their visibly strong options. Aberdeen, Washington’s Lilly Camp tossed a ridiculous 342 strikeouts in her senior season of high school alone, while New Mexico transfer Natalie Fritz, who was the 2-time MWC Freshman of the Week last year for the Lobos, striking out 78 batters over the course of her 100.2 innings.
Prediction
2025 Result: 47-8 (21-2 WAC), Regular Season: 1st, Tournament: 1st, Made NCAA Tournament, Lost in Tucson Regional
2026 Prediction: 43-12 (19-6 MWC), Make Conference, NCAA Tournaments
All in all, the Lopes have a very deep hitting core and pitching staff as per usual, and seem to have effectively filled the very few holes on their roster from graduations, while losing zero meaningful contributers to the transfer portal. I think the Mountain West will be a multi-bid league this year, both due to GCU’s addition and teams like the Aztecs, Bulldogs, and Wolf Pack scheduling a great deal of difficult matchups to bolster both their own and each other’s resumes. As a result, I believe GCU will be in no matter if they win the conference tournament or not, as they will no longer be weighed down by the largely pitiful nature of their conference mates.
GCU’s schedule is still definitely lighter than I would hope in the first half of the season, which may lead to some early stumbles in conference play. However, their schedule down the stretch is much, much tougher than in years past, with series against SDSU and Nevada towards the end of the season, as well as their nonconference games against three perpetually-ranked teams. This should help the Lopes come tournament time.
In addition, call it bold, but this is the year I see GCU finally being able to break through the glass ceiling, reaching the NCAA Super Regionals for the first time after four consecutive years of falling short. One thing the WAC did to the Lopes over the last few years is that it gave them next to no competition at any point in the season before the Tournament itself, leaving the Lopes to try and figure out how to play up to more experienced, well-rounded competition whenever May came around. Now, in the Mountain West, the Lopes will have teams like San Diego State, Nevada, and Fresno State who can match them in several key areas, along with teams like New Mexico and Utah State that are always tough to take down on the road.
I am excited to see where Grand Canyon can go this year. GCU has already made the Mountain West more exciting on the hardwood this season with their early addition, but the diamond is where they truly dominate. The road to the conference title runs through Phoenix this year. Let’s see if anyone can step up to take them down.
Next up will be a fellow conference contender, the Nevada Wolf Pack. Their preview will also be dropping tomorrow at 8 a.m. PST.
