Kenzie Brown, Sun Devils softball team have struggled after hot start

TEMPE – When Kenzie Brown takes the mound, it’s usually a fearsome sight for the opposition. 

Coming into the 2026 college softball season, the Lake City, Illinois native was expected to be Arizona State’s premier pitcher after an All-American 2025 campaign where she went 19-8 with a 1.28 ERA and the fourth-most strikeouts in the country with 289. 

But as Brown has waned in the second half of the season, so has ASU’s record (23-9, 3-6 Big 12), with the team sliding precariously down the conference ladder. 

In two appearances against No. 13/11 Arizona (23-8, 6-3) last weekend, the Sun Devils’ ace turned in mixed results, striking out 10 in five innings during an 11-run win on March 20, but giving up two earned runs and seven hits across four innings two days later. 

Brown’s performance mirrors her season as a whole. The graduate student was clinical to begin the year, holding a 2.26 ERA in her first eight appearances and posting double-digit strikeouts in half of them. ASU won six of those games, as Brown had a 4-1 record with two saves. 

Since that point, however, Brown’s impact hasn’t met her lofty expectations. Her ERA more than doubled to 4.66 in her next six starts and she gave up two or more earned runs in five of them after doing so just three times in her first eight outings. 

Brown’s downturn coincides with ASU’s decline as well. Even with their ace starting two games, the Sun Devils failed to capitalize on a golden opportunity against their interstate rivals. 

Despite beginning the trip on a positive note, with coach Megan Bartlett notching the 100th win of her career in Tempe, No. 20/25 ASU couldn’t close out the series due to multiple late-inning losses. 

The first game of the weekend saw the Sun Devils sustain their momentum from a series win against No. 21/15 Oklahoma State, mercy-ruling the Wildcats 16-5 in five innings. 

Leading the charge was catcher Emily Schepp, who transferred from Arizona this past offseason and entered the contest in a 2-for-17 slump. Against her former team, the junior broke out in spectacular fashion, finishing 4-for-4 with two home runs and four RBIs, all career-highs. 

“I was really just trying to simplify my approach at the plate, swing at strikes and just (be) short to the ball,” Schepp said. 

Following the dominating opening game, ASU experienced a similar pattern the rest of the weekend, rebounding from early deficits before stumbling late. On Saturday, the Sun Devils crawled out of an 8-0 hole behind home runs from redshirt senior Brooklyn Ulrich and sophomore outfielder Ashley Mejia in a span of three innings. 

A two-out infield single in the bottom of the seventh off senior pitcher Aissa Silva, though, brought home the winning runs for Arizona and tied the series at one-apiece. 

“Softball is a game of momentum, and we had a lot of it last night,” Bartlett said. “We just had a little bit of a slow start today and then, once we started hitting a couple of pitches, we were able to take control of the momentum and made a run of it there at the end.”

In what felt like deja vu, the Sun Devils faced a near-identical situation the following day. ASU fell behind 4-0 early before a four-run top of the sixth breathed life back into the dugout. 

A two-run home run from Arizona center Sydney Stewart in the bottom of that same inning, the eventual game-winning runs, served as the gut punch that reversed all of the Sun Devils’ excitement and closed the door on any chance for the visiting team to pull off an upset. 

After the game, Bartlett mirrored her sentiments from the day before. 

“Today was a heartbreaker,” she said. “We started the weekend with a lot of momentum … We weren’t quite as sharp as we wanted to be early on and by the time we gained some momentum, it was a little late and that cost us.”

After starting the season 19-3, ASU is 4-6 in its past 10 games. Losses to Utah and Arizona dropped the Sun Devils to eighth in the Big 12 standings with a 3-6 record. 

They have four non-conference games this week – three at the Mizuno Showdown in North Carolina – before tackling another chance to move up in the Big 12 with a three-game away series against Kansas (23-9, 4-2), beginning April 2.

ASU’s ability to string together series wins against ranked opponents in conference play will remain crucial as the Big 12 tournament approaches in just over a month. 

“We’ve just got to get back to the drawing board,” Bartlett said.

Related