Ohio Wesleyan has won three North Coast Athletic Conference championships in softball. The softball team won back-to-back titles in 2004-05. The softball team played its first varsity game in 1974. Mary Parker, also the women’s lacrosse coach, coached the softball team to a 2-3 record. With the move to the NCAC in 1984, softball was dropped as a varsity sport.
Softball was reinstated as a varsity sport in 2000. In 2004, Linsey Longstreth ’06 was named to the Louisville Slugger/National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division III All-America teams, becoming Ohio Wesleyan’s first All-American in softball. Ohio Wesleyan finished the season with a 28-15 record, including a mark of 11-3 in the NCAC. The Bishops shared the NCAC championship, their first-ever league title in softball, and finished second in the NCAC tournament, also their best finish ever. The 28 wins were the most in school history.
In 2005, under first-year head coach Amy Tudor; the softball team won the NCAC title by two games, taking the conference championship for the second straight season. Also, in 2005, Ohio Wesleyan hosted the conference tournament for the first time.
The Battling Bishop softball team plays its home games at Margaret Sagan Field, located on South Henry Street on the southeastern corner of campus. Margaret Sagan Field opened in 2008, giving the softball team an on-campus home for the first time since the sport was reinstated for the 2000 season. The Bishops swept a doubleheader from Mount St. Joseph on April 17 in the first games played on the field. The field was dedicated on April 19, 2008.
Named after Margaret Sagan ’48 in recognition of gifts from the Sagan family, Margaret Sagan Field is oriented similarly to neighboring Littick Field, with home plate at the northwest corner of the lot, the first base line parallel to Henry Street and the third base line heading toward US 23, which lies beyond the leftfield fence.
The facility features dugouts, bleacher seating and a two-story press box with areas for concessions and storage. Its dimensions are 200 feet down the lines, 207 feet in the alleys and 215 feet to straightaway center, with a surrounding fence of vinyl-covered chain link. As part of the project, a parking lot was constructed off Henry Street south of the field, allowing off-street parking at softball contests.
From 2000-07, Ohio Wesleyan home games were played at the city of Delaware’s Mingo Park, a complex of three softball fields north of the Ohio Wesleyan campus.
