Schedule News: UMHB Softball releases 2025 schedule

BELTON — UMHB Softball released its 2025 schedule on Tuesday afternoon, featuring games against the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the final 2024 NFCA Top 25 poll, along with four opponents that The Cru has never faced before in non-conference play.

Composed of 24 non-league contests and 16 conference games, UMHB’s slate has a new look to it compared to past years. With the American Southwest Conference down to just five programs—UMHB, Hardin-Simmons, ETBU, Howard Payne, and LeTourneau—conference series will be expanded for baseball and softball from three games to four. However, while The Cru will face ETBU and LeTourneau four times, those games will come over the course of two doubleheaders against each, with the doubleheaders being played five weeks apart. 

UMHB starts its 2025 campaign in the same way it has the last two seasons, facing St. Thomas (TX), a program out of the SCAC. UST, who reached the 2022 NCAA Regionals, won the lone meeting between the two last season, 3-0, and in 2022, The Cru and Celts split a doubleheader in Belton. The 2025 season opener comes on Feb. 7 in Houston, with a 1 p.m. doubleheader. 

Then comes an in-season home-and-home series with nearby Southwestern. UMHB’s home opener against the Pirates is set for Feb. 11, with the Crusaders making the return trip to Georgetown a week later on Feb. 18. 

A trip to Jackson, Mississippi follows, with UMHB facing former conference foe Belhaven in a Feb. 21 doubleheader. That is a marquee matchup, likely the toughest two games of UMHB’s entire non-conference schedule, as the Blazers went 47-10 in 2024, finishing as the national runner-up in the Division III Championship Series. The following day, The Cru battles Millsaps for the first time in program history in a two-game set. 

UMHB returns to Belton 11 days later, welcoming York College (PA) to Dee Dillon Field on March 5. The doubleheader against the Spartans comes on March 5. York went 26-18 last season, finishing as the MAC Commonwealth Tournament runner-up. 

The Cru hosts Carnegie Mellon a day later, facing the Tartans for the first time. CMU, out of the prestigious University Athletic Association (UAA), went 16-18 in 2024. 

UMHB gets another UAA opponent just over a week later, after facing UT Dallas in a March 8 doubleheader. The Crusaders head to San Antonio for two games against Rochester on March 14, another notable doubleheader considering UR went 32-9 in 2024. The Yellowjackets were ranked No. 18 in the final NFCA Top 25 poll last season. 

The highly-anticipated conference opener in Marshall against reigning national champ, ETBU, is set for March 22 at noon. The Tigers, likely to open the season ranked No. 1 in the country, come off a 48-3 season that included a 22-1 ASC record. UMHB is seeking its first win over ETBU on the road since 2022. The Cru then hosts ETBU for a doubleheader on April 26 on the second-to-last week of the regular season. 

UMHB’s 2025 non-conference slate also includes two games in Belton against McMurry on March 26 and an April 8 doubleheader against Texas Lutheran, who finished 2024 ranked No. 13 by the NFCA. 

The complete 2025 schedule is listed below: