After an undefeated trip to Georgia last week, No. 12 Virginia Tech travels to Auburn this weekend to participate in the Jane B. Moore Invitational.
The Hokies (11-2) are scheduled to play two games vs. USC Upstate and the host Tigers and a single game against Troy. It appears only the two games with Auburn will be televised.
Troy (No. 3), Upstate (No. 14), and Auburn (No. 15) all rank in the top 15 in the country in batting average while the Hokies are No. 32. The three teams are also in the top 26 in runs per game, and Auburn is seventh in the country in home runs (30).
Interestingly, these will be the first games that Troy has played away from home this season and only the second for USC Upstate.
“It’s really a good tournament,” Tech head coach Pete D’Amour said on a recent HokieSports podcast. “We’re looking forward to playing five really good games against three opponents that are playing well right now. These games are preparing us for conference play.”
The Hokies are coming off their best performance of the young season last weekend, going 4-0 in Athens and sweeping Georgia by identical 9-3 scores. Nora Abromavage (4-for-8, 2 HRs, 4 RBI), Jordan Lynch (5-for-7, 3 runs), and Kylie Aldridge (4-for-7, 4 RBI) led the hitting assault against the Bulldogs.
“Offensively, we’re realizing the value of getting good pitches to hit and hitting balls hard,” D’Amour said after the series. “We hit a lot of rockets this weekend.”
Virginia Tech outscored its opponents 35-11 in Athens and is currently hitting .344 as a team. The Hokies have seven starters hitting over .300, and 10 different players have combined to hit 19 home runs. Abromavage leads the team with 5 bombs.
Emma Mazzarone, Bree Carrico and Sophie Kleiman had an excellent weekend in Georgia, allowing a combined three runs in 18 ⅔ innings while striking out 18. As a team, the Hokies have a team ERA of 2.86 and are averaging 8.2 strikeouts per seven innings.
USC Upstate
The Hokies will open and close the tournament with games against USC Upstate. The Spartans (12-3) are coming off of back-to-back Big South titles and NCAA Tournament appearances.They lost to Towson (9-8), Harvard (3-2) and Wofford (12-9) so far this year, while their best win to date is a 10-9 victory over Ohio.
Senior outfielder Talliyah Thomas, the Big South Preseason Player of the Year, has gotten off to a hot start, hitting .462 with four home runs. She is a perfect 12-for-12 on stolen bases. Odessa College transfer Mackenzei Bernal-Mahagan leads the team in hitting with a .476 average.
USC Upstate is hitting .376 as a team and is averaging almost three stolen bases per game. Seven of its regular starters are hitting over .320.
Senior Maddie Drerup and freshman Chloe Poteete have gotten 13 of the Spartans’ 15 starts in the circle this season.
USC Upstate is coached by Chris Hawkins, who is in his 32nd season. He has won over 1,140 games in his career and has a winning percentage of .708. Since moving to Division I in 2010, Hawkins has led the Spartans to seven NCAA Tournaments.
Auburn
Virginia Tech softball’s visit to Auburn in 2024 became memorable because of the weather. A Rachel Castine grand slam on Friday propelled the Hokies to an 8-1 win over Auburn, and a Bre Peck grand slam on Saturday gave the Hokies a 9-5 lead in the seventh inning, putting them on the verge of a sweep of the Tigers.
However, multiple pitching changes by then-Auburn head coach Mickey Dean, combined with a rain delay of two-plus hours, led to an eventual cancellation of the game, and the score reverted to the last full inning, creating a 5-all tie and negating Peck’s blast.
This season’s Auburn team has a record of 13-4, with some solid wins and some head-scratching losses.
For the first time in 12 years, the Tigers opened the season on the road and proceeded to drop an 11-3 run-rule contest at North Florida. Two days later, they dropped a 12-11 decision to Pittsburgh when they committed four errors that led to six unearned Panthers runs.
Last weekend’s trip to the Mary Nutter Classic in California produced four wins, including an impressive 10-5 win over No. 17 Oregon and a 19-5 demolition of Cal. However, Auburn also suffered a 23-1 run-rule loss to No. 9 UCLA and a 5-2 setback to No. 14 Washington.
Offensively, the Tigers are hitting .369 as a team, with eight regular starters hitting over .350. They are seventh nationally in home runs and in the top 20 in runs per game (8.41), on-base percentage (.458) and slugging percentage (.666).
Auburn’s four leading hitters are all transfers:
- Junior Alyssa Hastings (Lipscomb) is hitting .475 with an on-base percentage of .500.
- Sophomore Kylie Shaw (Florida) is hitting .458 with an on-base percentage of .612.
- Senior Destiny Rodriguez (Tennessee) is hitting .424 with five home runs and 21 RBI.
- Senior McKaela Walker (LSU) is hitting .389 with five home runs and 14 RBI.
Although Auburn has a team ERA of 3.81, it’s giving up an average of 5.5 runs per game due to unearned runs. The Tigers have committed 26 errors this season that have led to 38 opponents’ runs.
Sophomore right-hander Ella Harrison (7-1, 2.08 ERA) was a Big Ten All-Freshman Team selection last year at Rutgers, starting 29 games with an ERA of 2.61. She leads the Tigers with eight starts and has 48 strikeouts in 43 ⅔ innings.
Junior left-hander SJ Geurin (2-2, 3.59 ERA) started her college career at Oklahoma before transferring to Auburn last season. She finished 2025 with 59 pitching appearances, the second-most in the nation, and led Auburn in ERA (2.97). She has struck out 18 batters in 27 ⅓ innings this year.
Auburn is now coached by Chris and Kate Malveaux, who serve as co-head coaches. They replaced Dean, who left at the end of the 2024 season after seven years. Chris primarily runs Auburn’s offense while Kate primarily works with the Tigers’ catchers, defense and baserunners.
The duo led Auburn to a 35-24 (6-18 SEC) record in their first season and took the Tigers to their 11th consecutive NCAA Tournament.
Both coaches came to Auburn after serving as assistant coaches at Tennessee, where they helped the Lady Volunteers to 136 wins over three seasons. That included back-to-back SEC regular-season titles in 2023 and 2024 and a Women's College World Series appearance in 2023.
Troy
Troy heads to Auburn for its first road game of the season after beginning the year with three straight home tournaments.
The Trojans have compiled a 12-2 record, with their best win of the season coming on Saturday in a 2-0 win over Omaha, D1Softball’s highest-ranked mid-major program. They’ve already won 10 of their contests by run-rule. Their two losses were against Chattanooga (10-9) and Nicholls (6-5).
Junior Makaley Boswell, Troy’s leading hitter, was just named the Sun Belt Player of the Week after recording five multi-hit games in a 4-1 week for the Trojans, batting 11-for-16 (.688) overall and slugging 1.188 with 10 RBI, six runs and three stolen bases.
Troy leads the Auburn tournament teams in hitting with a .422 batting average and is averaging over eight runs per game. It has nine starters hitting over .300 per game.
The Trojans have stolen 50 bases this season, a number that leads the Sun Belt and is second in the nation.
Troy has effectively used a committee approach in the circle, with five different pitchers throwing 10 or more innings. Left-handed freshman Abby Lovell appears to be the early workhorse leader, going 3-0 with a 0.27 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 26 innings. She is currently on a 19-inning scoreless streak.
Lovell and right-handed junior Savannah Money (2-0, 1.80 ERA) have each started four games for the Trojans.
Troy is coached by Eric Newell, who is in his fourth season, where he has compiled a record of 112-67-1 (.622).
Newell spent the previous eight seasons at D-II Auburn-Montgomery and eight seasons at Williams Baptist, where his teams went a combined 556-209 (.727). He won eight conference titles and appeared in six NCAA or NAIA postseason tournaments, with four World Series appearances.
Here is the tale of the tape for the Jane B. Moore Invitational:
