The Georgetown University softball team will kick off their 20th season this coming weekend Feb. 7-9 at the Charleston Southern University (CSU) Kickoff in Charleston, S.C. There, they will face off against Kentucky’s Bellarmine University, New York’s Siena College and Charleston Southern University.
This season, the Hoyas will hope to improve both their conference and nonconference records through a program of nonconference round-robin style tournaments and conference 3-game series. Georgetown will compete in a classic each weekend of February before starting Big East play Mar. 7. With many new additions to the team, on both the playing and coaching end, the Hoyas have the opportunity to cultivate a new legacy.
In many ways, the Hoyas start this season anew, having only recently parted ways with their long-time head coach, Pat Conlan, last month. The program’s new coaching staff, consisting of Head Coach Karla Ross and Assistant Coach Camryn Dolby, joined Georgetown Jan. 29 and Feb. 3 respectively. Ross brings with her experience as an associate head coach at DePaul University for one season and as head coach at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore for four seasons. Dolby brings three seasons’ experience as a private coach at a club in Ashburn, Va. to the Hoyas. Both coaches also played Division I softball themselves, Ross at the University of Wisconsin and Dolby at Boston College and the University of South Florida.
Last season, Georgetown ended with an overall record of 14-33 and a conference record of 4-20. The Hoyas will hope to improve their performance this year with the addition of four new first-years and two graduate transfers to their roster.
The four first-year team members include outfielders Dani Koo and Maggie Howard, second base and shortstop player Nina Sarlo and pitcher Emily Collins, who hail from Menlo Park, Calif., Greensburg, Pa., Little Ferry, N.J. and Ashburn, Va. respectively.
Dani Koo received her high school league’s player of the year in 2023 and posted a batting average of .507 in her last high school season. Maggie Howard brings defensive firepower to the squad, as a first-team all-state and all-section outfielder for her high school team. Nina Sarlo offers hitting power for the Hoyas, having posted a .435 batting average and .604 slugging average throughout her time in high school. Emily Collins rounds out the first-year class, bringing with her both an impressive high school pitching career where she had a combined earned run average (ERA) of 1.42 over her junior and senior seasons and a .469 batting average for those same seasons, earning her spot as her high school’s all-time home run leader.
On the graduate transfer side of the incoming recruiting class, pitcher Sage Hager and shortstop Sammy Fenton join the Hoyas from Santa Clara University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), respectively. Across three seasons at Santa Clara, Hager posted a 3.12 ERA and will join Georgetown’s existing pitching staff of senior Avery Wissmar, graduate Julia Parker and senior Kayla Dunn, along with first-year Emily Collins. At UPenn last year, Fenton ranked second on the team among qualified hitters with a .310 batting average.
The six new additions to the team have joined an existing roster of 14 players. Along with the new coaching staff, these additions to the roster will help the Hoyas as they work to turn over a new leaf in a new decade for the program. Last season, Georgetown finished eighth out of nine teams in the Big East conference. This season in a Big East preseason poll, the Hoyas were voted to finish last.
Following the CSU Kickoff Feb. 7-9 to start the season, the Hoyas face three more consecutive weekends of tournament play, before entering Big East competition the following weekend. Georgetown will head to Greensboro, N.C., the weekend of Feb. 14-16 for the Spiro Classic, where they will compete against the University of Toledo, the University of North Carolina Greensboro and Merrimack College.
The following weekend, from Feb. 21-23, the Hoyas will head back to North Carolina, this time to Chapel Hill, where they will compete in the Carolina Classic, playing Queens University of Charlotte, University of West Georgia, the University of North Carolina and Wagner College. Georgetown will stay closer to home for their final round-robin of the season, competing in Lynchburg, Va., at the Liberty Softball Invitational against Drexel University, Liberty University, Lehigh University and Appalachian State University.
The Hoyas will play their first home game of the season March 5 in a midweek, single-game matchup against College of the Holy Cross at the Washington Nationals Youth Academy before commencing Big East play March 7-9. A notable weekend of conference play for the Hoyas is May 2-4, where Georgetown will take on DePaul University — the only team they ranked ahead of last season and the former home of new head coach Karla Ross. The Hoyas will continue Big East play through May, and if they manage to climb the rankings and secure the sixth seed or better, they will compete in the Big East Championship May 7-10.
In this new era for Georgetown softball, the Hoyas will hope to surpass their previous season’s efforts and make a new name for themselves.
