Softball opened its 2025 season with doubleheaders against two top-20 ranked opponents–#18 Pfeiffer University and #9 Christopher Newport.

The team traveled to Pfeiffer to start the year, and quickly fell behind after allowing three runs in the first inning.

The Panthers tallied their first run of the season on an rbi double by Emily Hopper, scoring Nicole Emerson.

The team did not plate another run but allowed one run in the third and fourth inning.

In game one, Ferrum scored one run on five hits, losing the game 5-1.

Emily Wood started the game in the circle, allowing four runs, three earned, on five hits.

Wynema Thomas followed, throwing two innings, allowing one unearned run on two hits, and she recorded a strikeout.

Sophia Peters threw the final inning clean, allowing one hit in her outing.

In game two, the score was knotted at zero through the first two innings.

Pfeiffer would go on to put up five runs in the next two innings, and with no runs scored by either team in the fifth, Ferrum was down 5-0 with just six outs to play with.

In the top of the sixth, Kaylee Hughes hit a two-run homer to left field, cutting the Pfeiffer lead to three.

In the bottom half of the inning, Pfeiffer plated four stretching the lead to 9-2, which would end up being the final score after a scoreless inning for the Panther bats in the seventh.

This past Sunday, softball had its home opener against Christopher Newport.

CNU held the lead from the first inning, and solid pitching shut down the Panther offense.

Macie Bell drove in the only Panther run in the bottom of the sixth, scoring Lexi Bennett on an error by the CNU shortstop.

Ferrum softball dropped game one against the Captains 7-1.

The team had three hits in game one and followed with only three hits in game two.

In game two, the team didn’t score and lost 4-0.

Head Coach Joshua Freeman said their first two doubleheaders were against veteran clubs with some of the top talent at the Division III level.

“We competed and had chances to win a couple of those games. Playing top-talent teams is always a challenge. It definitely gave us a good bit to work on, and it has brought us closer as a team,” he said. “Learning that we can compete with top talent teams has given us a lot of confidence going forward against the rest of our schedule.”

Freeman also said that facing great pitching will help mature his young group.

“We had great at-bats and squared a lot of softballs up. We have faced four senior pitchers so far, a couple All-Americans, and All-Region type players,” he said. “Facing that tough pitching has brought out the fight in this team. They are hungry to keep improving.”

In the team’s first four games, they committed 10 errors defensively.

“Defense will be huge for us going forward. Having three freshman and a junior in the circle this year, we will have to clean up some of those areas,” Freeman said. “Hopefully the snow will stay away so we can work on cleaning those things up.”

Against CNU, Freeman thought his team went into attack mode offensively.

“Their strikeout to walk ratio is one of the best in the country, with a lot of strikeouts,” he said. “We went up to the plate swinging. I thought it produced good at bats, just couldn’t string them together.”

Softball will host two double headers to begin spring break against Methodist University Sat., March 1 and Albion College Sun., March 2.

Freeman hopes to win all four to get to .500.

“Shut them down in the circle and score more runs than they do. Honestly, just keep building on the successes we had have this past week,” he said. “When we hit ODAC play, we are playing the best softball at that time.”