Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina softball enters the final week of the regular season with three games remaining. The Catamounts travel down I-26 for an offensive showdown this weekend featuring the top two hitting teams in the Southern Conference when WCU visits the Wofford Terriers.

This week's final regular-season series is set for a Friday doubleheader before the finale on Saturday at Wofford's on-campus Hope Field. 

Friday's twin bill starts at 3 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN+ (paid subscription required), with Saturday's game scheduled for a 1 p.m. first pitch. Live stats for each game are linked on the schedule page at CatamountSports.com.

Catamount Season Notes:

• Western Carolina enters the final weekend of the regular season having matched the 2016 squad for second-most wins in school history with a 33-19 mark. With one more win, this year's squad will move into second alone, only trailing the 41 victories for the 2006 team in its debut season. 
• WCU finished with 19 home victories on Betty Peele Field at the Catamount Softball Complex, the most since winning 20 in Cullowhee back in 2006 … the Purple & Gold's 19 home wins are a six-game improvement over last season's home record. 
• The Catamounts begin the week leading the SoCon in runs (349), hits (462), home runs (71), runs batted in (324) – the lone team in the league over 300 RBIs, and slugging percentage (.527). WCU also sits second in batting average (.321), stolen bases (77), and on-base percentage (.393). 
• Western Carolina ranks 15th in the nation in hits, 20th in RBIs, and 26th in home runs.

Catamounts Individual Leaders 

• WCU enters the week with six regulars batting over the .300 mark – Maya McPherson with a league-leading .420 average, Lily Bell (.372), Sydney Dirks (.365), Tate Stewman (.355), Taylor Waitley, and Becka Wonsick (.340).
• Junior third baseman Maya McPherson looks to cap off an incredible campaign, batting .420 with a .793 slugging percentage. She begins the weekend with 73 hits, just three shy of surpassing WCU's single-season record. McPherson currently holds the team lead with 12 doubles and 17 homers, one off the SoCon's top power threat. McPherson has totaled 55 RBIs, third in the SoCon. Over the weekend, she set a school record for total bases in a season with 138, passing Erin Foster (137, 2012). 
• The two-time SoCon Player of the Week honoree has tallied a team-best 25 multi-hit games, including a four-hit game coming in a 13-7 win over Gardner-Webb, where she slugged a three-run homer. 
• Junior second baseman Lily Bell has been on a torrid pace over the last 10 games, batting .622 (23-for-37) with three doubles and 10 runs scored, five walks, and five stolen bases. Bell has hits in all 10 games with seven multi-hit games, including a pair of four-hit games. Bell enters the weekend on a 10-game hit streak and a 14-game reached base streak, currently leading the team in both categories. 
• Left fielder Sydney Dirks has 14 homers, tied for fifth in the SoCon, and is second in the league with a team-best 56 RBIs. Dirks has scored 40 runs, 11 doubles, and a pair of triples with a .700 slugging percentage. 
• First baseman Tate Stewman heads to Spartanburg with a red-hot bat … she's hit 17-of-34 (.500) over the last 10 games with four doubles and three homers to pair with a team-best 14 RBIs. Stewman's 15 homers, including eight in SoCon play, are tied for the league-best in the first six weekends of conference action. 
• The Catamount backstop Taylor Waitley sits at a .340 average, with 54 hits, which includes seven doubles and three homers paired with 32 RBIs and 37 runs scored. Waitley also has a .992 fielding percentage to go along with seven runners thrown out. 
• Becka Wonsick has stepped into the everyday role in right field over the final weeks of the regular season with a scorching hot bat. Wonsick is hitting .556 (15-of-27) with 12 runs, two doubles, one triple, and six homers in the last 10 games with 13 runs batted in. Wonsick is tied for the team lead with seven multi-hit games in the last 10. She's connected on 11 homers for the season… 
• The quartet of McPherson (17), Stewman (15), Dirks (14), and Wonsick (11) has propelled the Catamounts to the league-best 71 homers … WCU has four players with double-digit home runs – only five teams in DI with more players in double-digit homers in the 2026 season. 
• Catamount ace Amanda Fulton continues to rank among the league leaders in most of the league's stat categories … A previous SoCon Pitcher of the Week honoree is second with 15 wins, fourth with a 2.72 ERA, second in strikeouts at 150, and paces the conference with 14 complete games and is among the nation's leaders with four saves. 
• The Catamounts have a 23-4 mark when scoring six or more runs, are 31-5 when holding opponents to less than five runs, and are unbeaten 18-0 when opponents have only scored two or fewer runs …. WCU is 20-7 when scoring first, 24-1 when outhitting opponents, and has a 28-11 mark when hitting at least one homer… Western Carolina is 23-0 when leading after five and 19-0 when leading after six frames.

Records Broken in 2026 

• In nonconference play against Charlotte, Bell broke the school record for runs scored, now with 138 career runs … On April 14, Bell became the school's record holder for career hits, as she is the first Catamount in school history to reach 200.
• In a 21-0 shutout victory of Gardner-Webb back on April 14, Western Carolina set four program single-game records, with 20 hits, including seven doubles, scoring 21 runs with 21 RBI in the opener. Five individual game records were also tied as McPherson and Rylee Butler both had two doubles, with McPherson and senior Tate Stewman scoring four runs apiece. Freshman Amari Burce matched a school record with seven RBIs. 
• The Catamounts rewrote the record book once again on April 21 at NCCU, breaking three single-season team records and setting a single-game team record against NCCU. Western Carolina broke single-season records for runs scored, stolen bases, and runs batted in, while also setting a single-game team record with 10 stolen bases in the opener. 
• In the home finale against Mercer, the Catamounts matched the single-game team record for hits with 20 and homers with five, a mark previously hit earlier this season in a run-rule win over Furman.
• Stewman capped the home season with a seventh-inning RBI single, giving WCU 462 hits to surpass the 2006 squad for most hits in a season.  
• Western Carolina heads to Wofford needing just four doubles to set the single-season team record for two-baggers… the squad also reached 70 homers for the first time in school history since hitting a school-record 81 in the debut season for WCU.

WCU closes out the 2026 regular season with a trip to Spartanburg next Friday, May 1, for a three-game set against Wofford. The two teams open the twin bill at Hope Field at 3 p.m. before the regular-season finale at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Live stats will be available via CatamountSports.com for all three games, with Friday's doubleheader to be shown on ESPN+ (paid subscription required).

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