Lose the Finale, Win the Cup
Lexi Kilfoyl is your All-Star Cup champion after the wildest eight-point swing of the summer; plus fall ball wakes up and the 2028 recruiting phones are officially ringing.
Lose the Finale, Win the Cup
The summer season has a champion, the fall calendar has a pulse, and the phones just started ringing for the Class of 2028.
Lead Off
Sunday's finale went about as badly as it could for Lexi Kilfoyl: Team Klingler blanked her squad 5–0, swept every inning win point, and pushed Baylee Klingler eight points ahead on the leaderboard. Then the MVP votes — cast by the athletes and fans — came in. Kilfoyl was named MVP 2 of the very game she lost, the 40 points flipped the standings one last time, and the Chicago Bandits pitcher was crowned 2026 All-Star Cup champion on her home field. "I was shocked," she admitted. Her body of work wasn't shocking at all: a 1.98 ERA (fourth-best) over 17.1 innings, a 3–1 record, and 1,072 total points. Klingler took silver after going 5–1 as a captain; Sam Landry surged to bronze at 908 with four scoreless innings in the finale.
Why it matters: In Athletes Unlimited's individual format, the scoreboard isn't the leaderboard — and this one came down to peers deciding one outing doesn't define a summer. It's Kilfoyl's second career Cup medal, and her first title. Source →
By the Numbers
93 — career All-Star Cup hits for Morgan Zerkle, the all-time record. Her two-hit Saturday pushed her past Victoria Hayward's 92 atop a list she's been building since Athletes Unlimited's first season in 2020. Source · AUSL
Scoreboard
Last 7 days — Series Four in Rosemont
| Final | Note |
|---|---|
| Team Flippen 3–1 Team Klingler (Fri) | Bubba's three-run blast off the scoreboard; Garcia's heads-up tag at home ends it. |
| Team Kilfoyl 4–3 Team Flippen (Sat) | Sami Williams breaks the tie in the sixth; Kilfoyl's 4.1 scoreless innings take over first. |
| Team Klingler 5–0 Team Kilfoyl (Sun) | Klingler sweeps the inning points — and still comes up eight short. |
Upcoming — 5 to watch
| When | What | Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Fri Sep 4 | Line Drive's 2028 HOT 100 countdown reveals its top 10 | linedrivemedia.com |
| Sep 12–16 | WBSC Women's Softball World Cup Group Stage — Team USA hosts | Devon Park, OKC |
| Sat Sep 26 | Nebraska opens fall ball with a doubleheader vs. Kansas | Bowlin Stadium |
| Tue Sep 29 | Texas opens its fall slate vs. Murray State College | McCombs Field |
| Sat Oct 17 | Oklahoma State at Arkansas, the fall's biggest exhibition | Fayetteville |
The confetti's swept up in Rosemont — from here to February, the news lives on fall fields, phone lines, and one September stop at Devon Park.
Hot Corner
1. Sami Williams' clutch single hands Kilfoyl the inside track
Saturday's 4–3 slugfest was the game that really decided the Cup. Sami Williams snapped a tie in the bottom of the sixth with an RBI single to score Skylar Wallace, earning MVP 1, while Morgan Zerkle's three-run knock had erased an early deficit on the night she set the all-time Cup hits record. Kilfoyl relieved Amber Fiser in the third, threw 4.1 scoreless innings for the win, and left the night 148 points clear at the top. Source →
2. Bubba Nickles-Camarena's scoreboard shot opens the final weekend
Bubba Nickles-Camarena — fresh off stepping away from San Diego State's coaching staff to focus on her playing career ahead of the 2028 Olympics — hammered a go-ahead, three-run homer off the scoreboard at Parkway Bank Sports Complex on Friday, lifting Team Flippen past Team Klingler 3–1. Rachel Garcia took MVP 1 for a 5.1-inning, five-strikeout start — plus the play of the night's final out, recovering a bobbled grounder at first and throwing home to Dejah Mulipola to nab Alyssa Brito. Source →
3. Three Texas Tech players hurt in jet ski accident, expected to recover
Three members of the Texas Tech softball program were injured Thursday afternoon when two jet skis collided at Lake Ransom Canyon outside Lubbock during a team event. The school says the players — who have not been publicly identified — suffered leg and hand injuries, with no injuries considered critical, and all are expected to make full recoveries. Local authorities and Texas Parks and Wildlife are investigating. Source →
4. Mississippi State's Mowatt-McKinney named national assistant coach of the year
Taryne Mowatt-McKinney — the 2007 WCWS Most Outstanding Player as Arizona's iron-woman ace — earned D1Softball's National Assistant Coach of the Year on Monday after her Mississippi State pitching staff rewrote the program record book and helped push the Bulldogs to their first Women's College World Series. The staff-move machine kept humming around her: Alyssa Ruiz was named head coach at Quinnipiac, and Arizona State extended Megan Bartlett. Source →
5. Fall ball wakes up, with pro-vs-college games on the menu
Programs flipped to fall mode this week — Oklahoma State and Texas both kicked off practice, and Softball On SI's fall preview shows how ambitious the exhibition slates have gotten. Nebraska will play the Professional Softball League's Kansas City Diamonds, Duke faces the Florida Vibe on Oct. 18, and back-to-back champ Texas closes its fall at Texas A&M on Nov. 6. Consider it a February appetizer. Source →
From the Dugout
Podcast pick: The Dirt (NFCA) — "All-Things NIL" with sports-business reporter and NIL author Kristi Dosh (Aug. 26, 57 min), a plain-English tour of how name-image-likeness money actually works from the youth ranks up through college. Takeaway: before your athlete's first recruiting call — and for 2028s, those calls are now legal — learn what a program's NIL support really includes, and treat any promise that isn't in writing as a maybe. Listen →
Clip of the week: @dr3fastpitch — Coach D Rubin pairs pitching mechanics with the mental side of the position, Fall ball starting, her circle-confidence reps are the right save for pitcher parents this week.
Play of the Week
A backhand, a flip, and the summer's smoothest 4-6-3
In Friday's Series Four opener, Sydney Sherrill ranged deep to her backhand behind second base, gloved a ball most infielders wave at, and turned it into a 4-6-3 double play with the calm of a warm-up rep. The league's cameras cut straight to disbelief; her peers handed her the game's Defensive MVP nod. Twelve games of All-Star Cup, and the slickest ten seconds belonged to her.
Source: @theauslofficial · Watch the full clip →
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