While the UW-Oshkosh softball team is currently enjoying another solid season, the pitching staff which has been a strength in the team’s past two seasons is once again showing out.
The Titans pitching staff currently is sporting the second-best ERA in the WIAC with a 1.73.
If the team could top the ERA leader in UW-Stevens Point, it would be the third straight season that the Titans finished atop the WIAC in ERA (first in 2024 and 2025).
Head coach Scott Beyer said that a strong pitching staff is necessary to have success on the field.
“Our pitching staff is the backbone to any quality team we have had,” Beyer said. “We look for the best pitchers available when recruiting, but also want to bring in different styles of pitching, so if one thing isn’t working, we have the capability to bring in something different to the opposition.”
This season’s pitching staff is highlighted by the trio of freshman Kiran Sanford, junior Brianna Bougie and sophomore Grace Nardi.
Sanford leads the team with a 1.36 ERA while Bougie sports a 1.85 ERA making it the third straight season she has a top-two team ERA (first in 2024 and 2025).
Nardi, despite having the worst ERA of the three pitchers, owns a 2.38 mark.
Sanford believes that the staff has a job to execute and make sure that they put the team in a spot to succeed offensively and defensively.
“I think execution is the key to the game in all aspects,” she said. “As a team we’ve talked about consistency a bit, so I think finding the middle ground between our highs and lows and building up from there will help us be even more solid than we already are. We’ve done a good job at executing pitches and letting our defense work behind us.”
Sanford, who was an all-state first-team honoree coming into college, is leading almost every pitching stat on the team. She credits her teammates on the staff for getting her accustomed to the challenge of college softball.
“I turn to [Skyler Calmes] for lots of my questions regarding the mental side of the game,” she said. “She’s someone I’ve looked up to even before college so being able to learn from not only her, but [Bougie] and [Nardi] too is great. They have been such great teammates and we all work really well together.”
Even with Sanford’s dominant start to her career, Bougie and Nardi’s seasons can’t be undermined and coach Beyer knows that.
“All of our pitchers make me feel like we will win when they are in the circle,” Beyer said. “It is a luxury to have that trust in not only [Sanford], but our staff as a whole.”
With Bougie and Nardi’s experience, both have a role where they either start or come in for relief and it is something that Beyer is impressed with on how they handle their roles.
“We have asked [Nardi] and [Bougie] to do both and they have responded with great attitudes,” he said. “They both have their own strengths and preferences when it comes to starting or relieving, but it’s important when our tournament time comes that all pitchers have had experience doing both and they know that is what’s best for the team.”
A strength to the staff is the way they are able to respond to adversity that happens.
“Its a big part of softball, even a bigger part of pitching,” Beyer said. “We practice a certain way and normalize failing, so when it happens in a game, we are able to breathe and move on quickly.”
An example of that trust that Beyer has in his pitchers came in the two games against Illinois Wesleyan University on March 28 and 29.
In the first game against IWU, Bougie was trying to close out the game with a 4-3 lead but in the final inning, two singles and a walk loaded the bases and led to a walkoff grand slam for Illinois Wesleyan.
The following day when the two teams played again, Bougie started that game and pitched a complete game shutout in UWO’s 1-0 win over IWU.
“When I asked [Bougie] about pitching against Illinois Wesleyan again [on March 29], she said ‘its just a homerun, no big deal’ and then proceeded to shut them out,” Beyer said. “That type of attitude and grit is what we try to practice on a daily basis, and seeing it show up like that proves something to all of us.”
Beyer knows that even though the team could still improve with few games left, the pitching gives the offense time to get it going.
“We still haven’t played our best game yet, but with our pitching staff, we know we will always be in any game and gives us time to get the offense rolling,” he said.
The pitching staff will have a challenge coming up as UWO has a busy week ahead with a doubleheader against UW-Whitewater on April 21, followed by the rescheduled doubleheader against Marian University the next day (April 22).
Then on the weekend, the Titans will come back to Mary Beth Nienhaus Softball Complex for a doubleheader against UW-Stout on April 25. They will compete in another doubleheader vs UW-River Falls which was originally scheduled to have taken place on April 18 but postponed due to weather.
