Lobo Softball Opens 2025 Season in Texas
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— The 2025 softball season begins this week in Houston, Texas with a full schedule for the Lobos. UNM has a total of seven games on the schedule, starting with two games on Thursday in Huntsville, Texas on the campus of Sam Houston before traveling to Houston for five games between three days. Opening weekend will also be the first of three consecutive tournaments in Texas.
SCHEDULE:
Thursday @ 1:30 p.m. MT vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi | LIVE STATS
Thursday @ 4 p.m. MT at Sam Houston | LIVE STATS
Friday @ 12 p.m. MT at Houston Christian | LIVE STATS
Friday @ 5:30 p.m. MT at Houston | LIVE STATS
Saturday @ 9 a.m. MT at Houston Christian | LIVE STATS
Saturday @ 3 p.m. MT at Houston | LIVE STATS
Sunday @ 9 a.m. MT vs. St. John’s | LIVE STATS
All seven games will have live stats available, but only the two Houston games will be streamed and will be on ESPN+.
The Lobos will play at both HCU and UH on both Friday and Saturday with the game against St. John’s at Houston. UNM has history with all but St. John’s with the Lobos holding a win streak against Sam Houston, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Houston.
Coach Dickson is 13-6 all-time against Sam Houston, 8-1 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 1-2 against Houston and 10-3 against Houston Christian, with a 1-0 record against UH and an 0-1 record against HCU while at UNM.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE
The Lobos revamped their roster with a total of 14 newcomers, comprising half of the roster. Of the newcomers are 10 freshmen: three pitchers, two outfielders, two utility players, two infielders and a catcher/infielder.
UNM also added four transfers with a redshirt-sophomore left-handed pitcher in Lexi Atcitty from BYU, a junior right-handed pitcher in Nova Montes from Paris Junior College, a junior utility player in Georgia Heathcock from UC San Diego and a sophomore left-handed pitcher/outfielder in Marina Tinari from Florida Gulf Coast. Heathcock played in 33 games with 10 starts and Tinari appeared in 12 games with one start, pitching a total of 15.2 innings.
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Of the 28 players on the roster, the Lobos have 20 underclassmen with 10 freshmen and 10 sophomores, and eight upperclassmen with five juniors and three seniors.
The sophomores feature a trio of returners who played a bulk of innings last season, with McKenna Guest in the circle, DeNae Vasquez-Dickson in the outfield and Katherine Brunner in the infield.
Guest appeared in 40 games with 24 starts and nine complete games. The RHP threw 147.0 innings and struck out a team-high 90 batters, 56 more than the next pitcher. Guest accounted for 54.2% of the team’s strikeouts and threw 43.4% of the innings, played in 74.1% of the games and started in 44.4% of the games. Her 40 appearances tied for the third most in a single season in program history, and Guest recorded a strikeout in 30 games with 24 games with multiple strikeouts, including five games with at least five strikeouts. Nationally, her 40 appearances in the regular season tied for the fourth most in the NCAA, the most by a freshman, and her 24 starts tied for the sixth most by a freshman pitcher in the NCAA through the regular season.
Vasquez-Dickson started 46 games and played in 53 as a freshman, with 29 starts in center field, 12 in left field and five in right. She played in 94.1% of the innings last season. Vasquez-Dickson led the team with 15 sac bunts, which led the Mountain West and the third most in the NCAA in the regular season and most by a freshman. An offensive threat, she finished with four multi-hit games (three with two and one with three) and seven multi-RBI games (all with two RBI), and was third on the team in doubles (six) and fourth in RBI (18).
Brunner played in 49 games with 44 starts, starting in 25 games as the designated player, 12 games at third and seven games at second. The Lobo played in 82.6% innings and registered multiple hits in five games (four with two and one with three) and four games with multiple RBI (two with two and two with three)
Brunner was named MW Freshman of the Week on April 22, Vasquez-Dickson was MW Freshman of the Week on May 6 and Guest was named MW Freshman of the Week on March 25.
TAKE ME HOME COUNTRY ROADS
This season, the Lobos will travel to the home states of 20 players. There are 11 players from Texas, six from California, two from Arizona, and one from Utah. In addition, there are four players from the state of New Mexico.
Opening weekend will be a homecoming for 11 Lobos from The Lone Star State: Gabrielle Briones (injured, but from Mesquite), Katherine Brunner (Katy), Sydney Carithers (Fort Worth), Ava Castillo (Mansfield), Keyannah Chavez (Leander), Jessica DeLeon (San Marcos), McKenna Guest (Pattonville), Georgia Heathcock (Little Elm), Jasmyn Lloyd (injured, but from Grand Prairie), DeNae Vasquez-Dickson (Grapevine) and Allie Williams (Houston). Two Lobos are from the Houston area with Williams having attended Episcopal High School in Houston, where she was named to the Houston Chronicle All Private School Team and to the VYPE Sports All Private School Team in both 2022 and 2023 and was the VYPE Private School Player of the Year in 2023 and 2024, as well as Brunner from Katy, roughly 30 miles west of Houston.
Overall, the Lobos span from coast-to-coast with a player from Virginia (Ella Dawson) to Hawai’i (Jewels Hanawahine) and from nine different states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai’i, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia).
LIFE ON THE ROAD
The Lobos have 12 of 53 total games at home with the home opener set for March 14. UNM will play 28 games between the season opener and the home opener with three trips to Texas, a trip to Mississippi and Arizona and a game at New Mexico State. The first game played in the state of New Mexico for the Lobos will be in Las Cruces on March 11.
This will be the first time since the 2010 season that the Lobos will open the season in Texas, with the Lobos opening the 2010 season in San Marcos, Texas at the Texas State Tournament. Of note, the Lobos will also play in San Marcos and at Texas State this season.
The Lobos had 14 home games a season ago, with UNM going 7-7, and 16 home games in Coach Dickson’s first season with the Lobos going 9-7.
VERSATILE EMMA
Senior Emma Bramson enters her fourth season with the Lobos, and in her 144 games, has played six different positions.
Bramson has started all 144 games and has started 68 games at third, 39 games at first, 21 at shortstop, eight as the DP, five at second and three in right field.
Last season, the California native started the final 39 games at first base and started four games at third, three games in right and eight as the designated player. Her sophomore season, Bramson started 39 games at third and five games at second, and as a freshman played 25 games at third base and 21 games at shortstop.
REPLENISH THE BULLPEN
UNM enters the season with a total of nine pitchers on the roster with only two returners from last season. Of the nine, three are freshmen, four are sophomores, one is a redshirt-sophomore and one is a junior, and only three have collegiate experience entering this season (McKenna Guest, Brooke Umali and Marina Tinari).
Guest enters with the most experience at 147.0 innings, with Umali pitching 29.0 innings her freshman season and Tinari tallying 15.2 innings in her freshman season at Florida Gulf Coast.
FROM PLAYER TO COACH
Two former players of Coach Dickson are now on her staff in assistant coaches Sophie Hannabas and Mackenzie Bennett.
In 2021, Hannabas transferred to SFA to play under Coach Dickson, and through her two seasons with the Lumberjacks, combined for 101.3 innings with 63 strikeouts, a .331 opposing batting average, and allowed 10 home runs appearing in 41 games with 20 starts, with SFA winning the WAC Conference in 2022. Hannabas works with the pitchers and handles director of operations duties.
Bennett joined the Lobo coaching staff this past July and works with the catchers and as a secondary hitting coach. She has ties to the entire UNM coaching staff as Bennett played for Coach Dickson and assistant coach Morgan Spearman at SFA from 2019-22 and played with Hannabas in 2022 and 2023. During her five years with the Lumberjacks, Bennett played in 164 games with 136 starts and finished with 139 hits, 31 doubles, two triples and 25 home runs, along with 101 RBI and hit .330, with a .591 slugging percentage and .387 on-base percentage. Of her 164 games, she recorded multiple hits in 42 of the games and multiple RBI in 33 and twice carried a 10-game hitting streak (in 2021 and 2022) as well as a 17-game streak of reaching base in 2021. In her final season, she led the team at the plate behind a .367 batting average, 14 doubles and 49 RBI and was second on the team with 12 home runs and a .686 slugging percentage.
FIRST GAME, FIRST WIN
Coach Dickson became just the second coach to win in their Lobo coaching debut, doing so with the largest margin of victory (+9) when UNM run-ruled Nicholls 12-3 in five on Feb. 9, 2023. Erica Beach was the other head coach to win in her first game (a 10-2, five inning win against Utah Valley on Feb. 12, 2011).
Dickson and Beach are the only two coaches to win the season opener in their first two seasons, but Dickson has the chance to become the only Lobo coach to win the season opener in her first three seasons.