Marshall Softball Preview
By Morgan Watson, FM88 Sports
Feb. 24, 2026
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) — As the home opener starts to edge near, the Marshall University Softball Team is beginning to prepare to host not only other teams, but hundreds of Thundering Herd fans. Bella Gerlach, Paige Simpson, Paige Maynard and Abby Darnley are confident that their tough preseason schedule and first away games have prepared them to play at home.
“Our schedule is always difficult the beginning of the year and it is just to help us for conference later on,” says senior Bella Gerlach. She says the fights with teams like Florida and Florida State, who have been their most difficult opponents, have been a lesson that will help them the rest of the season.
Although they battled with top ranked schools the past few weeks, they still try and go into each game with the same mindset no matter the opponent. Paige Maynard says, “we can put up a fight with any opponent.”
Struggling with fielding as their lowest ranking in the Sun Belt Conference, this young team has had to learn new positions and ways to cope with changes. Gerlach says, “We have a lot of people trying out new positions, and for the outfielder, she has been playing first base for the beginning of the season, which she hasn’t done since her freshman year.”
As for Paige Maynard, working with a new pitching coach, Drew Calloway, has been nothing short of an excelled learning experience. She said, “He doesn’t allow them to just be satisfactory and complacent and really pushes them in their bullpens.”
This fresh, young Marshall team hosts Akron to open the home stretch on March 6th. You can listen to live coverage of Marshall Softball on 88.1 WMUL-FM The Cutting-Edge Sports Radio Network, and online on Stream 1 at www.marshall.edu/wmul.