Weber State softball the No. 5 seed in Big Sky tournament
Greg Merrill, for WSU Athletics
Weber State's Abby Grundy prepares for a pitch during the Big Sky softball tournament championship game against Idaho State on Saturday, May 10, 2025, in Greeley, Colo.Weber State softball put a cap on a difficult regular season with an 11-7 road win at Utah State, racking up 19 hits Tuesday in Logan.
WSU catcher Apple Maldonado homered and drove in three runs while Taegan Smith hit 3 for 4 with a home run. The Wildcats trailed 6-0 early but rallied for the win.
Weber State finishes the regular season with a 14-40 record and, having gone 4-11 in the Big Sky, the defending Big Sky tournament champions enter the conference postseason as the No. 5 seed, avoiding last-place sixth by beating No. 6 Portland State 2-1 in their series three weeks ago.
WSU struggled with pitching health and consistency, ultimately giving up an average-against of .349 and allowing a whopping 83 home runs in 54 games.
The regular-season title went down to the final day Sunday with a rubber match between Idaho State and Montana, a winner-take-all tilt. The Bengals repeated as regular-season champions with an 8-2 win, denying the Griz their first league title.
That gives Idaho State the No. 1 seed again and hosting rights to next year’s tournament (for the third consecutive year). Meanwhile, Montana fell to a three-way tie for second place and lost all tiebreakers, landing the No. 4 seed.
That means Montana and Weber State will open the Big Sky tournament with a first-round matchup in the double-elimination bracket, set for 9 a.m. Monday, May 4.
Scheduled for 11:30 a.m., No. 3 Sacramento State and No. 6 Portland State will tangle. The Montana/WSU winner plays No. 1 Idaho State at 2 p.m. and the Sac State/PSU winner faces No. 2 Northern Colorado at 4:30 p.m.
The bracket continues Tuesday and Wednesday, leading to a Thursday championship game at noon (an if-needed game would follow).
The tournament is the last for Sacramento State as the Hornets are headed to the Big West. But the Big Sky expands to a seven-team softball league in 2027 with the additions of Southern Utah and Utah Tech.
Below are Weber State’s statistical leaders for the season.
Batting average: Jordan McMahon .399, Sadie Kirk .368, Apple Maldonado .346
RBIs: Maldonado 42, Kirk 16, Taegan Smith 16, Abby Grundy 16
Home runs: Maldonado 8, Emma Bingham 5, Abby Grundy 4
Runs scored: McMahon 33, Smith 28, Grundy 24
Walks: Grundy 19, Maldonado 16, Mariyah Delgado 16
Pitching wins: Cali McCraw 6, Kendall Freidinger 4
ERA: Freidinger 5.82, RJ Parra 5.86, McCraw 5.96
Strikeouts: Freidinger 38, McCraw 31
