Pictured: Addison Hesters, a 2027 outfielder with the Fury Platinum – Vandiver team, has committed to USC-Union, a NJCAA Division I program.

In this weekly post, we cover primarily club/high school age players committing to play at the collegiate level and, in some cases, we’ll spotlight players who’ve played at, say, a junior college and will be moving up to play D1 or some other level.

Right now, there are several explosive things going on in softball including the transfer portal, coaching changes, several decommits and, would you believe 112 new commits?!?

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PLAYER TRANSFERS

I can’t go a day without seeing multiple players I’ve covered during their club/prep days making a transfer to find a new home and this can be exciting seeing these athletes take the next step in their collegiate careers.

For example, two sisters who I covered in their club days, Berkeley Zache and Riley Zache, would go on to the Univ. of Oklahoma and just this week transferred together to the Univ. of Michigan.

Two years ago, I had Berkley ranked No. 3 in the Line Drive 2025 HOT 100 as a 6-foot-1 pitcher playing for the Unity 18U – Johnson/Ricks team and Riley was a Class of 2024 catcher/infielder who played for the Beverly Bandits and I had her ranked No. 21 in her class at one point.

Cool that they get to go back home—they’re from Niles, Mich.—and play in the state where they grew up now wearing the Maize and Blue of the Michigan Wolverines.

I go on and on about others, like Kasidi Pickering, going from Oklahoma to Texas Tech; Gigi Ganje going to Northwestern after a great at Penn; Zoie Bernard, moving from Michigan State to Texas Tech; Cambria Salmon heading to UCLA after time with the Texas Longhorns… all players I got to know and be impressed by in their earlier careers!

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COACHING MOVES

The other big thing going on right now is changes in the college coaching world; again, it’s rewarding to see current coaches rising up the ranks that I knew when they were in their travel ball playing days.

For example, one of my favorite players ever to be around because of her positivity and energy was Aubrey Leach-Gartner. She played for the Sudden Impact Gold program and would go on to have a great career at Tennessee and at the pro level and is now an assistant coach under Karen Weekly who she played for from 2016-2019.

Another college coaching move saw Taylor McQuillin take an assistant position at the University of Utah.

Boy, when Taylor was pitching for the OC Batbusters led by Mike Stith, she was a fiery competitor who just willed the travel ball powerhouse to a pair of national titles.

She would go on to great things at the Univ. of Arizona and as a senior helped the Wildcats make it to the 2029 Women’s College World Series for the first time in nearly 10 years.

She also played for Team Mexico in the 2020 Summer Olympics and help her team finish 4^th which is fantastic when I think of how I got to first watch Taylor when she was oh so young!

Another cool thing about both of these players I covered in their youth days is that they went on to play professionally in the AUSL—Aubrey with the Blaze and Taylor with the Bandits— and it’s great to see the pro league get the traction that it’s getting.

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MORE DECOMMITS

*** One decommit of note is talented 2027 pitcher Aubrey Chavez of Arizona Rising – Appel who had verballed to Utah State in September but is now back on the market to be recruited:

*** Another decommit comes from a 2026 power hitter from Arkansas, Kendall “Noodle” Watson who just graduated from Malvern High.

The outfielder who plays for Arkansas Thunder decommitted from East Texas A&M and look for her to be a steal for someone here late in the game who’ll grab Noodle as a sleeper outstanding hitter.

*** Kendal Headley, a 2027 left side of the infield defender, had committed to the University of Minnesota back in the fall but has reopened her recruiting with former Gopher Head Coach Piper Ritter being fired in May and Gretta Melsted being hired.

Email commit info to: Brentt.Eads@LineDriveMedia.com.

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Here are a few of this week’s additions who shared their happy commit news via social media…

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If you know of a commit AT ANY LEVEL, email Brentt.Eads@LineDriveMedia.com to get the verbal added to our Master Commit Spreadsheet

NOTE: We publish the updated list weekly–every Sunday.

• Sundays Only (through Sept. 1): check out our updates on the latest verbals since the previous update + our “master list” of all those who have committed since Sept. 1 in primarily the 2027 & 2026 classes.