MANSFIELD, Texas – Midwestern State begins the season with five games at the Lone Star D2 College Classic as Kae Lani Bryan makes her debut as the Mustangs head coach.
The season opener is Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. as Midwestern State faces Central Missouri. The venue for the 29-team event is Fields at Station 63. The Mustangs are also playing Rockhurst on Friday at 4:45 p.m. and both games are scheduled to be played at Field No. 6.
Midwestern State meets Maryville at Field No. 3 on Saturday at 2 p.m. before playing twice on Sunday. The Mustangs square off with Augustana (S.D.) at 9 a.m. on Field No. 7 and play Drury at 11:15 a.m. on Field No. 4.
Midwestern State finished last season with a 20-33 overall record and went 17-27 in the Lone Star Conference.
Bryan was hired as the new head coach in July after seven seasons as the head coach at Fort Scott Community College in Fort Scott, Kansas. She is the all-time winningest coach in Fort Scott history with 122 victories.
Bryan led the Greyhounds to a school-record 40 wins in 2024 and the first-ever Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference title in program history.
Fort Scott won the 2024 NJCAA Region 6 D2 Tournament Championship with four consecutive wins, including an 11-9 victory over KJCCC regular season champion Johnson County to clinch a berth in the NJCAA Division II Softball World Series.
Midwestern State is picked to finish 13th in the 2026 Lone Star Conference Softball Preseason Poll following voting by the conference softball head coaches, sports information directors and media members as announced on Wednesday.
Freshman Chipper Mayorga, an infielder from San Antonio, was named as a Preseason Player to Watch, and junior Kayleigh Bowers from Phoenix was named a Preseason Pitcher to Watch.
Mayorga was an All-District utility player at Class 5A Thomas A. Edison High School, while Bowers appeared in 27 games and made 21 starts for the Mustangs last year. Bowers finished the season with a 6-8 record and had a 4.82 ERA with seven complete games.
Other returning players include Madison Stewart (catcher), Jaycee Yezak (infielder), Megan Ayala (utility), Tatum Waller (outfielder), Shyanne Florence (pitcher).
Central Missouri has 12 players returning from a team that went 30-19 last season and finished 14-10 in the MIAA. The Jennies were picked to finish fifth in the 2026 MIAA Preseason Poll, which is where they finished last season.
Rockhurst, which plays East Central before facing the Mustangs on Friday, finished last season with an 18-26 overall record and was 14-14 in the GLVC. The Hawks were picked to finish ninth in the GLVC preseason poll after earning a berth in the GLVC Championship Tournament as the No. 8 seed last spring.
Maryville finished third in the GLVC last season with a 28-26 overall record and a 19-9 mark in conference play. Maryville is picked to finish sixth in the preseason poll. Sophomore pitcher Cora Boyle pitched 154 innings last season with a 3.14 ERA and junior Addison Keith hit .339 in conference play and finished the season with six home runs and 32 RBIs for the Saints.
Augustana (S.D.) is picked to repeat as conference champions in the NSIC preseason poll, and the Vikings have the preseason NSIC Player of the Year with junior outfielder/pitcher Desi Cuevas, who compiled a team-high batting average of .378, 73 hits and 47 RBIs with 13 home runs for the Vikings last season. Augustana is led by reigning NSIC Coach of the Year Gretta Melsted, who guided the Vikings to a 50-11 record last season, finishing 25-3 in conference play. The Vikings took top-seeded Central Oklahoma to a third game in the NCAA Super Regionals but lost the deciding game 5-1.
Drury was picked to finish second in the GLVC preseason poll after earning a share of the regular season title last year. Head coach Brooke Gajewski returns 16 players from the 2025 squad that finished with a 35-23 record and made the program's deepest run in the NCAA Tournament. The Panthers were eliminated by top-seeded Saginaw Valley State after posting two wins over Findlay in the Regionals.
Midwestern State will face Southern Nazarene, Southwestern Oklahoma State and Rogers State in the Rogers State Festival next week.
