Wesleyan Softball: Mudita Mentality Makes Magic on the Diamond

After a historic 2025 season which saw the Wesleyan softball team fall just short in the NESCAC Championship game, the Cards are back and hungry as ever in 2026. Far from resting on their laurels, the Cards have burst into the year with a scrappy identity built on always making the play that’s best for the team, celebrating each other’s successes, and being the toughest out in the ’CAC.

The Cards started the season with a bang, trading snowy Middletown for one week and 12 games in sunny Clermont, Fla.

Captain and third base Kelly Baker ’26 highly values the time that the team spent in Florida.

“The Florida trip is always my favorite time of the year,” Baker said. “You spend so much time with your teammates. You go to the games, you go back to the house, [and] watch movies at night together. I think that really makes very strong bonding. That’s the first time that you get to really know the freshmen. Yes, you have practices, but you don’t get the backstory and really understand your teammates. And so I think Florida is great because it really builds that team bond.”

The Red and Black started out with a tough game, falling 0–5 to Haverford College, but were undeterred. With only 15 minutes in between games, they regrouped before taking on Western New England University. The Cards’ quiet bats woke up in a hurry, putting up nine runs on eight hits, with all of the first seven Cardinals reaching. They did not look back, taking the game 14–6 and breaking into the win column in resounding fashion.

Captain and second base Molly Lennon ’26 knew that the team would not stay down for long.

“That first game was definitely a fluke; we didn’t get out right in front,” Lennon said. “And so then immediately we’re like, this is not us. [In] Game 2, we scored 14 runs or something like that, against the next team. And we just kept saying, that is us. That is our identity. And that just continued throughout most of the trip.”

With the momentum flipped, the Red and Black kept rolling, taking down Carthage College 10–5 and battling Nichols College for a 3–2 victory on Wednesday, March 11, and then, with an off-day in between, took down Hiram College 10–2 and shut out Swarthmore College 6–0 on Friday, March 13.

Lennon was proud of how the team came together in the Swarthmore win.

“They were nationally ranked in the preseason poll, and we shut them out,” Lennon said. “[Jacelyn Lees ’28], our pitcher, pitched a complete game, [and] we scored six runs against them. And this is a top team. We’re like, ‘Okay, if we can do this against the top team in the country, we can do anything.’ That was a big win for us.”

Baker highlighted the tight win over Nichols as well, for the Cards’ late-game, team-first heroics.

“The Nichols game showed this scrappy mentality that I think we’ve really tried to adopt,” Baker said. “The idea that you have to be a tough out, even if it doesn’t go exactly as you want. Of course, everyone wants to get up and hit a home run, but at the end of the Nichols game, we had three bunts in a row to get the bases loaded to score that walk-off. We had to do the little things right, and that is what had us win. You play until the last pitch, and that’s what really makes us a good, competitive team.”

The rest of the spring trip played out to mixed results, but the Cards still entered the NESCAC season with a 6–5 record. First up on the schedule was a road doubleheader with Bowdoin. Game One did not go as planned: The Polar Bears struck early and did not let up, and the Cards fell 1–10. After a tough loss, the Cards went down again and found themselves in a 1–4 deficit at the top of the fifth inning of game two, but instead of submitting, the Red and Black dug deep. 

A hit parade, combined with smart baserunning and team-first play, led to 13 batters coming to the plate in that half inning and eight Wesleyan runs, including a two-run blast by Lennon to put the Cards up 9–4. The Polar Bears would not go away, tying it in the bottom of the fifth and going ahead 11–10 in the bottom of the sixth, but the Cards were not going to be swept. In the top of the seventh, with two outs, a single by Katie Foley ’28 followed by three doubles by Whitney Gigante ’28, Nicole Celi ’27, and Baker gave the Cards the runs they needed. They closed out the win 13–12, securing the split and affirming the results of their scrappy, tough-out mentality.

“We want to be that annoying team that just doesn’t go away,” Lennon said. “The first game wasn’t great, but then we showed Bowdoin like, you still gotta play game two. You have to beat us twice, and that’s hard to do.”

Following Bowdoin, the Cards were home to take on No. 11 Tufts. In game one, the Jumbos did their damage in the first inning, scoring three, but pitcher Lees was unflappable coming on in relief, holding the Jumbos scoreless through the last 6 and 2/3 innings. The Cards made it close, scoring one in the second and another in the third, but were ultimately unable to tie the game, falling 2–3. In game two, the Jumbos used a big sixth to propel them to an 11–6 win. 

Although these were not the results the Cards hoped to see, Baker still considered the series valuable.

“I think it was a very team game,” Baker said. “Being like, ‘Oh my gosh, we dropped two to Tufts’ is a very easy way to look at that. But we had a nationally ranked team, we fought 3–2. That’s a good game. Another day, that score might be reversed, and that’s what we need to hold on to. We are still on a competing level with those teams, and there’s no one that we can’t compete with.”

Coming off getting swept in their home opener, the Cards bounced back less than 24 hours later with a sweep of their own against Hamilton. In game one, the offense carried them to an 8–2 win on the backs of strong offensive performances from Lennon, Cat Palmer ’26, and Baker, though Lees had to leave the circle early with an injury. In game two, having used three of their four pitchers, Ella DeCrescenzo ’27 delivered when the Cards needed her most with her first career complete game. DeCrescenzo gave herself some insurance with an RBI triple as a part of the Cards’ two-run sixth. This led the Cards to a 3–1 victory and a sweep of Hamilton.

Shortstop Ruby Stewart ’27 explained how the Cards have the ability to bounce back quickly after a loss. 

“One of our goals is first, not settling and also not letting the past dictate our future,” Stewart said. “Just moving on from whatever mistakes have been made in the past, and working hard and turning over a new leaf and remembering it’s a new game.”

The dominant pitching carried over into the week as DeCrescenzo threw her second straight complete game, leading the Red and Black to a 4–2 victory over the Coast Guard Academy. Then Gigante followed suit, throwing her first career complete game shutout with nine strikeouts, leading the Cards to a 3–0 win and a sweep of Coast Guard.

Baker highlights the progress the Red and Black have made over the four years and compares it with their performance against the Coast Guard. 

“I think it was a really great full circle moment of, ‘Wow, this is how far our team has come,’” Baker said. “Three years ago, it was a bloodbath against the Coast Guard. And then now here we are, two games in a row putting the gas pedal on, not letting up.”

Following their three-series, six-game home stand, the Red and Black made it up to Amherst for their first Little Three games, coming off being Little Three Champions last season.

In game one, the Cards could not get their offense started as they managed just two hits and DeCrescenzo yielded three runs in their 3–0 loss to Amherst. 

Baker wasn’t happy with the game one loss, but the team rallied around a key principle to turn the second game around. 

“We lost that first [game] in Amherst: again, very tough,” Baker said. “And after that first loss, [Coach Jen Lane] was rightfully very mad at us. And I think we all kind of had a moment of, not just do this for her, but do this for each other. We need to move forward. [At the beginning of the season,] one of our sophomores, Malia [Apor ’28], mentioned this idea…called Mudita. It’s all about playing for the person next to you, where you celebrate their joys as much as you want to celebrate your own or even more.”

Applying this mentality in game two, the offense came alive quickly with a three-run home run from Lennon and a run-scoring double from Palmer in the second, which gave the Cards a 4–0 lead. The Mammoths didn’t go down quietly, storming back in the third with a three-run inning to make it a one-run game. The score would stay 4–3 until the sixth, in which Palmer delivered with another double, this time a two-run double to give the Black a 6–3 lead. The Mammoths scored two runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth, but DeCrescenzo came for her second appearance of the day and shut down the threat in the sixth and worked a 1-2-3 seventh inning, securing a 6–5 victory and a series split against the Mammoths for the Red and Black. 

Stewart described the challenges of facing Amherst while being down a pitcher. 

“We have to become more reliant on our defense and our hitting,” Stewart said. “So I think just understanding that we have to step up both offensively and defensively is like something, I don’t think we really understood in the first game, but then switching into the second game, then we were able to come back with that defense and that hitting that we really needed, especially being down JC.”

The Red and Black continued to rely on their pitching as they faced Albertus Magnus College. In game one, the Red and Black went down 0–1 in the top of the first but quickly tied it on a single from Palmer. Then, in the fourth, Rebecca Cassel-Siskind ’26 lined a two-run single that scored three on an error, giving the Black a 4–1 lead. They wouldn’t relinquish that lead as DeCrescenzo went the distance for her third complete game in her past five appearances, leading them to a 6–1 win.

In game two, the Red and Black got out to a quick 3–0 lead in the first thanks to hits from Lennon and Cassel-Siskind. Gigante pitched 5 and 2/3 shutout innings with seven strikeouts. While Albertus Magnus did rally for two runs off Baker, it proved to be not enough as the Cards won 4–2 and swept Albertus Magnus. 

Stewart commended Gigante and DeCrescenzo’s ability to step up in the circle for the Cards. 

“I think they really deserve this opportunity to succeed,” Stewart said. “And I think it’s really awesome how they’ve come out like this and just shown everyone what they’ve [got]. It’s really impressive.” 

The Cards, with their 14–9 record, look to continue their hot streak with a NESCAC matchup against the 9–9 Trinity Bantams this Saturday, April 11, as a part of Senior Day. 

Baker explains the emotion, and that will come along with playing Trinity. 

“Trinity is gonna be tough, because it’s our Senior Day, so it’s a little bittersweet, especially for the seniors of this is kind of an ode to us,” Baker said. “But with the idea of Mudita, I know that my teammates are going to go into that thinking, ‘We need to get these wins for the seniors,’ and I think that’s a really nice thing, to have that much faith in your team.” 

Ethan Lee can be reached at ejlee@wesleyan.edu.

Benjamin Mayer can be reached at bmayer@wesleyan.edu.