MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (Feb. 25) – The Waynesburg University softball team opened the 2026 season on Wednesday with a doubleheader against Penn State Altoona. The game was held at Mylan Park in Morgantown, W.Va., with the Yellow Jackets serving as the home team. Defensive struggles doomed the Jackets in game one, but the Orange and Black bats took center stage of a win in the late contest.
 
Runs were hard to come by for the first half of the opener, but the Lions (1-1) were able to put up a run in the top of the first that was the direct result of two Waynesburg (1-1) errors. Penn State Altoona doubled its advantage with a run in the fourth, but the Jacket bats finally started to stir from their winter slumber and a Waynesburg rally was just around the corner.
 
Senior Kassidy Trimble (Parkersburg, W.Va. / Parkersburg South) led off by reaching base on an error. Fellow senior Maddie Cicero (Willowick, Ohio / Eastlake North) followed with an infield single. Two batters later, the home team picked up its first run of the season when sophomore Rylee Rohbeck (Oakdale, Pa. / South Fayette) brought in Trimble with a double. Two batters later, senior Braylee Corbin (Petersburg, W.Va. / Petersburg) singled in Cicero to knot the score at 2-2.
 
Unfortunately, Altoona fired right back in the top of the sixth with a three spot, including two more unearned scores, to go up 5-2. The Jackets got one of those runs back thanks to an RBI single by Cicero that brought in freshman Lorryn Sepe (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Penn-Trafford). Once again, the Lions answered Waynesburg's challenge by tallying its final run in the top of the seventh to go up 6-3.
 
Waynesburg was able to put two on base with just one out on the board in the top of the seventh, but were unable to push any runs home.
 
Sophomore Madison Baker (Kittaning, Pa. / Armstrong) got the start in the circle and suffered the loss after giving up five runs, but only two of them were earned. She worked 5.1 innings during which she allowed five hits and two walks. Freshman Emily Pratt (Bedford, Pa. / Bedford) worked the final 1.2 innings, during which she gave up one unearned run on two hits and a walk.
 
Waynesburg out-hit Penn State Altoona 9-7 in game one. Rohbeck, Corbin, Cicero and sophomore Tori Foust (Blairsville, Pa. / River Valley) posted two hits each.
 
The second half of game one was just a preview of what was to come in game two, as the Jackets used a six-run second inning to power an 11-3 victory that featured 13 hits by the Orange and Black.
 
After falling behind 2-0 in the first, Waynesburg pushed a half-dozen across home plate in the bottom of the second. Sepe got things rolling with a walk before sophomore Graeson Grubbs (Volant, Pa. / Wilmington) was hit by a pitch. Freshman Morgan Walt (Hunker, Pa. / Hempfield) slipped a single up the middle to load the bases. Two batters later, Rohbeck tied the game with a two-run single. Corbin followed with a double that brought in the eventual game-winning run and made the score 4-2. Junior Jamie Kelly (Front Royal, Va. / Skyline) put the finishing touches on the big inning with her team's first homerun, a two-run bomb that put her team up four (6-2).
 
A two-spot in the third extended the Jacket advantage to 8-2. Altoona got one back in the top of the fifth, before Waynesburg reached double digits in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly by Corbin and an RBI single by Kelly. Grubbs capped the offensive outburst with a run-scoring double by Grubbs in the sixth that ended the game an inning early.
 
Sophomore Pressly Meadows (Annapolis, Ohio / Edison) was the biggest beneficiary of Waynesburg's offensive outburst, as she picked up the win in the circle. She tossed a complete game, during which she gave up three earned runs on six hits and three walks. Meadows piled up nine strikeouts.
 
Rohbeck and Foust led the charge at the plate by both going 4-for-7. Sepe scored a team-high three runs over the split. Corbin posted a squad-best four RBIs, while Rohbeck and Kelly drove in three runs each.
 
The Jackets are back in action on Friday, Feb. 27, when they host Carlow for a noon doubleheader.