Miami softball has established itself as one of the best teams in the country. The RedHawks currently hold the #24 spot in the national rankings, one of two teams outside the five major conferences to be nationally ranked. The 45-7 RedHawks will travel to Akron on Thursday for the MAC Tournament, a competition they have won every year since 2021.
“What’s happening here is not normal,” said Dave Meyer, assistant athletic director for communications at Miami. Meyer was responsible for creating a new website that tracked where Miami and its players stood among the NCAA softball record books.
“I was getting so many questions about where we were with records that I made a page for myself to track them,” Meyer said. “It’s taken off a little bit.”
The 2024 RedHawks are all over the record books. Their 154 home runs this season leads the NCAA, and is the fourth most all-time by a team in one season. Miami also leads the nation in slugging percentage (.757) and runs per game (9.37). The nation has started to pay attention to the success that Miami has earned.
“Normally I get a couple requests a year from people asking to talk to Miami softball. Now it’s multiple requests every day,” Meyer said.
The RedHawks are going into postseason play on a roll. They have won their last nine games and have lost just once in their last 33 games. Miami ended conference play 26-1, its best record since 2021. It also picked up non-conference wins against Louisville, Pittsburgh and #17 Louisiana.
“They’re playing their game,” head coach Kirin Kumar said. “When they play their game it’s hard for any team to beat them.”
Kumar has changed the trajectory of Miami softball. Since he arrived, before the 2021 season, the RedHawks have won 75% of their games and have an 86% winning percentage in the MAC. Since arriving at Miami, the RedHawks have won three MAC regular season titles and two conference tournaments. Miami reached the NCAA tournament every year from 2021 to 2023.
Miami was Kumar’s first head coaching role. Before arriving in Oxford, she was an assistant coach at Virginia Tech and NC State. She also reached the NCAA Tournament with Tulsa as an assistant coach in 2016.
“They want to do things that Miami softball has never done,” Kumar said. “Having a group that isn’t satisfied with what we did last year is incredible.”
Leading the RedHawks is a dynamic duo of dominant bats. Karli Spaid and Jenna Golembiewski are #1 and #2 in the nation in home runs, hitting 34 and 28 respectively. Spaid’s 101 career home runs are the second most all-time, behind Oklahoma’s Jocelyn Alo with 122. She’s just three round-trippers away from matching the single-season record.
“I stopped looking at stats about a month ago,” Spaid said. “Once you think about that, then it’s all you think about.” She said that the team has adopted a “never say die” attitude, a mentality she expects will serve them well in the postseason.
“We all have so much trust in each other,” Spaid said. “When those bad things happen, we can come back.”
Miami will kick off its postseason run on Thursday in the MAC Tournament against either Central Michigan or Toledo. Should they win their fourth consecutive MAC title, they will find out who they play in the NCAA Tournament on May 12.
