The Arizona Wildcats had a lot of questions to answer going into the 2025 softball season. How would the eight-player pitching staff work? What would the infield look like after the loss of Carlie Scupin, Allie Skaggs, and Blaise Birigner? Who would supply the power that Scupin and Skaggs were known for? How would the team handle a schedule that is tough from the get-go, including three games against two ranked opponents in the first weekend?
Scheduling tough
Arizona had six games scheduled for the opening weekend of the season. Three of them were against teams ranked in the USA Today/NFCA poll, No. 11 Alabama and No. 22 Washington. The pattern will continue throughout the nonconference season.
Sixteen of Arizona’s 22 nonconference games will be against teams that were in the top 100 of the RPI when the NCAA postseason began last year. Seven games are scheduled against teams in this year’s NFCA preseason poll, including No. 1 Texas and No. 5 UCLA. Four more are against teams that are receiving votes in the NFCA poll.
“It’s tough to schedule and get teams to come to you,” said Arizona head coach Caitlin Lowe. “And (assistant coach) Lauren Lappin does a great job of scheduling every year, as far as reaching out and getting good competition at the tournaments. And then it goes according to who we can get in, and then we schedule out appropriately. So with getting a good mix of some really good RPI teams pre-conference, it’s going to be nice.”
Arizona should end up with one of the better schedules in the country both inside and outside the league. The RPI of the teams in the Big 12 were fairly comparable to those of the Pac-12 last year, and Arizona only plays one of the two Big 12 teams that finished outside the top 50 in 2024.
The Big 12 had all 10 teams in the top 92 of the 2024 RPI; the Pac-12 put all nine of its teams in the top 88. Both relied on playing multiple series against teams in the top 10 that are no longer relevant to the comparison. The Big 12 had No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Oklahoma, which are now in the SEC; the Pac-12 had No. 6 UCLA (now in the Big Ten) and No. 7 Stanford (now in the ACC). The Big 12 also had No. 9 Oklahoma State, which is still in the conference.
About those Arizona hitters
Despite playing a tough opening weekend schedule, Arizona did not have a huge problem getting its offense going. The Wildcats scored a total of 54 runs in six games. They had 15 in three games against Washington and Alabama, including hanging nine on the Crimson Tide in a run-rule victory.
The state of the power-hitting game is still open to some debate. While the team hit a total of eight home runs, 12 doubles, and two triples over four days, none of those home runs or triples came in the three games against ranked opponents.
The only extra-base hits against Washington and Alabama were doubles. UA hit a total of four with two of them coming in the second game against UW.
The ‘Cats compare well to teams around the country. D1 Softball and 6-4-3 Charts put out a stats analysis for the opening weekend. The outlet and the stats service listed the top 100 hitting performances and the top 100 pitching performances. Arizona had three of the top 100 hitters: No. 9 Devyn Netz, No. 28 Dakota Kennedy, and No. 41 Sydney Stewart.
The pitching staff
As for the pitching staff, none of the Wildcats’ eight pitchers turned in one of the top 100 pitching performances of the first week. Truth be told, the pitching was a mixed bag.
The steadiest performers were opening day starter Miranda Stoddard and redshirt freshman Ryan Maddox. The duo were paired in several games and turned out to be a quality combination, fulfilling the vision that Lowe and pitching coach Christian Conrad have for the staff.
“We’re all so excited that she’s back this year,” Stoddard said about Maddox. “She’s put so much work in over the last, like, year and a half at this point to get back into recovery and rehab and all that stuff. And so I think that just our speed difference, her being a lefty, she’s super spinny, she can get up and down. She throws to all four quadrants. And so, I think that that match-up is really great.”
Stoddard started three games and went 2-0. She has a 0.60 ERA and 0.77 WHIP in 11.2 IP. She, Maddox, and true freshman Sarah Wright were the only three Wildcat pitchers who did not give up a home run, although Wright surrendered four earned runs in 1.2 IP.
Maddox relieved in all three of Stoddard’s starts. The diminutive lefty threw 3.1 innings without giving up a hit. Her only baserunner was a single walk. Her ERA stands at 0.00, her WHIP is 0.30, and her record is 1-0.
Seven of the eight hurlers got time in the circle. Sophomore Brooke Mannon was out with an illness. She was at the ballpark over the weekend, but she looked rather pale. She was finally cleared on Sunday, but that was the day of redemption for Devyn Netz, who pitched a nine-strikeout, two-hit shutout to avenge the Wildcats’ only loss of the weekend.
Netz had an impressive weekend at the plate, but her return to the pitching circle did not go as smoothly. On Friday, she got the start in Arizona’s first game against Washington.
The redshirt senior gave up one hit through the first two innings, but things got away from her in the third. She gave up a two-out walk, then surrendered a two-run home run to tie the game. In the next inning, she allowed a three-run home run to give UW a 5-2 lead.
Netz got another start on Sunday against the same Huskies team. It was one of the best of her career. She had only one baserunner through the first three innings, and even that was a questionable hit-by-pitch that the batter may have leaned into. The Wildcats played impressive defense behind her and the top of the order came through with timely hitting to finish the weekend on a high note.
The new infield
There hadn’t been much change in the Arizona infield for the past three years. The Scupin-Skaggs-Biringer trio were stalwarts. Biringer is a manager this year and Skaggs was in the stands for opening weekend, but their places on the diamond were up for grabs.
As expected, freshman Jenna Sniffen has third base locked down and Logan Cole played second base most of the weekend. Cole, who is finally back on the diamond after sitting out with an injury last year, had a few miscues in her first tournament back but Sniffen looked solid all weekend.
Cole shrugged and moved on, keeping a positive mindset despite her three errors over the weekend.
“Just forget about what happened before,” Cole said with a good-natured nod and smile. “I mean, there’s nothing you can do about it. Just relax in the moment and be ready for the next one.”
First base was a bit more unsettled. Netz played there on opening day. Washington transfer Sydney Stewart got some time there when she wasn’t behind the plate. The big surprise was Oregon State transfer Kiki Escobar, who was steady-to-spectacular in her start there on Sunday.
Escobar primarily played second base for the Beavers. As a junior last year, she had 10 errors and a .946 fielding percentage. She was out injured the year before but had 10 errors and a .956 fielding percentage as a freshman.
That’s considerably below the .973 career fielding percentage Skaggs had as the Wildcats’ second baseman from 2021-24. Skaggs’ worst year was her sophomore season when she had a .942 fielding percentage. She set a goal of improving on defense after that. The next year, she was a perfect 1.000 in the field, won a Rawlings Gold Glove, and was the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.
While Escobar could certainly improve at second, it’s not her natural position according to Lowe.
“I think she came out of travel ball as a third baseman, but she is literally a Swiss Army Knife in practice,” Lowe said.
The corner infield seems to suit Escobar, who had a highlight-worthy unassisted double play to help maintain the Wildcats’ win over the Huskies on Sunday.
The battery
In addition to the eight players on the pitching staff, Arizona has three catchers this season. Stewart and freshman Emma Kavanagh both got time behind the plate. Stewart did most of the catching while Kavanagh was in the lineup as the designated player, but the younger backstop got to play her typical fielding position, too.
Kavanagh started the second game against Michigan State with fellow freshman Wright in the circle. After the team went to Italy this summer, Kavanagh said that her favorite part of the trip was catching Wright’s shutout against the Italian national team.
Emily Schepp, last year’s primary starter at catcher, got a few pinch-hitting opportunities. While she struggled in the box, it’s a very difficult role to fill, especially when a player is used to getting regular at-bats. It’s something that senior Paige Dimler learned after her freshman season. She stayed devoted to the program and had some big moments over her final opening weekend.
“I liked how quickly we made adjustments from Friday,” Lowe said. “I think sometimes that can take weeks for the collective unit to kind of get on board. And I think there’s people that we wanted to have more at-bats on the bench that will get more at-bats. There’s still so many pieces that I think are gonna make us great. But Paige shined in moments, Anyssa (Wild) shined in moments, Schepp’s gonna get there and shine in moments. There’s just so many things I think about that, man, we can really play good match-up games, and it’s just exciting. I think we’re nowhere near the full picture of what we can be. So that makes it exciting to go to practice on Tuesday and just get to work.”
Lead photo by Madison Farwell/Arizona Athletics