After a once-uncertain future and years of trying to stay afloat, Northern Colorado softball has finally begun to find its stride again.

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Once a consistent force in the early days of the Women’s College World Series, the program went dormant for much of the 1980s and 90s until being revived in 1999, though success didn’t return immediately for the Bears. But now, the reigning and defending Big Sky Conference champions, after getting a taste of the top of the pile, want to stick around a little while longer.

The only way that UNC will be able to harden itself for the Big Sky slate, where every game especially matters considering that it’s only a six-team league, will be by playing tough competition that won’t show the Bears any mercy. They’ll get exactly that at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge this week, when a pair of elite, WCWS-level teams square up against them on Mexico’s picturesque Pacific coast.

Here’s a look ahead at what to expect out of Northern Colorado softball at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge this month, which is to be streamed live and exclusively on FloCollege:

How Did Northern Colorado Softball Do In 2024?

It can be hard to find sustained success as a college softball program in the rugged mountain west, where a lack of favorable weather early in the season often forces teams in the region to begin their years on long road trips. Yet Northern Colorado seems to be on track toward breaking that mold, judging by how the program’s been completely revived over the past two seasons. 

It was a banner year for the Bears in 2024 as they qualified for back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for the first time in program history and additionally captured their first-ever Big Sky Conference regular-season championship, eventually bowing out in the Stillwater Regional after defeats in the first two days to host Oklahoma State and Michigan. 

UNC’s strong season (which finished at 27-26 overall) was recognized within the Big Sky’s end-of-year awards as coach Dedeann Pendleton-Helm won the league’s Coach of the Year award, Amailee Morales won the conference’s Co-Player of the Year honor and Erin Caviness won the league’s Pitcher of the Year accolade, which capped off the Bears’ big 2024 slate in style. And while two straight NCAA Tournament appearances are impressive enough, a third straight trip in 2025 would signal to the rest of the country that UNC may be a plucky mid-major that’s here to stick around on big stages for a while longer.

How To Watch Northern Colorado Softball At PVCC

The Puerto Vallarta College Challenge is streaming on FloSoftball and the FloSports app. Replays of the games, highlights, and more breaking news will be on both platforms.

Who Coaches Northern Colorado Softball?

Before Dedeann Pendleton-Helm arrived to be the head coach at Northern Colorado in the summer of 2022 after spending 17 years as an assistant coach at nearby Colorado State, the Bears had never qualified for the NCAA Tournament in their history and hadn’t had a season above .500 since 2002. 

Since then, she’s ushered in an exciting new era in UNC softball, leading the program to back-to-back winning seasons and NCAA Regional trips along with a Big Sky regular-season championship this past season. Pendleton-Helm already is the most successful UNC softball coach in the program’s modern era (after the program was revived in 1999 following a 15-year hiatus) in both accomplishments and winning percentage and is well on pace to smash the program’s all-time wins record, which currently stands at 110 (Pendleton-Helm is currently at 53 through two seasons). 

Favored to win the Big Sky yet again in the league’s preseason poll, UNC softball is hoping for its best season yet under its now third-year coach, and it’ll be thrown right into the fire immediately with two games against the top 10-ranked competition on tap at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge.

Has Northern Colorado Softball Ever Won The Women’s College World Series?

No, Northern Colorado softball has never won the Women’s College World Series, but did you know that the Bears have actually qualified for the biggest stage in college softball 11 times — more than the likes of Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and other current college softball powers? 

There’s a bit of a caveat to that fact as all of UNC’s appearances in the WCWS came in the pre-NCAA era (before 1982), but from 1969-79, the Bears were in every edition of the WCWS as it was then administered under the now-defunct Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). As for seasons in the sport’s NCAA era, UNC has made the NCAA Tournament twice, doing so in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024.

Who Will Northern Colorado Softball Play At The Puerto Vallarta College Challenge?

Northern Colorado softball will square up against Florida State (at 2 p.m. ET Thursday), Louisiana Tech twice (5 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Saturday) and Oklahoma State (8 p.m. Friday) across three days of play at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge, played entirely at Nancy Almaraz Field in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and streamed live and exclusively on FloCollege. 

It is the ninth time that event — which was the first college softball event ever to take place outside the United States upon its launch — has taken place in the sunny resort town on Mexico’s Pacific coast, and Northern Colorado will take part in Session #1 of the event to be held from Feb. 6-8. All games from both sessions at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge will be streamed live and only on FloCollege.

Notable Returning UNC Softball Players

Amailee Morales, INF

Perhaps no single player has contributed more to the recent resurgence of Northern Colorado softball than Morales, who came to Greeley as a freshman player in 2023 in the program’s first year under Pendleton-Helm. Since then, the first baseman has been nothing but spectacular for the Bears and should be the preseason favorite to take home a second-straight Big Sky Player of the Year award this upcoming season. 

Morales had a good freshman season two years ago, batting .303 with 23 RBIs, but her sophomore campaign last spring was downright historic; her 13 home runs tied the school single-season record and her 61 RBIs broke it as she slashed .325/.446/.721, having a monster season that already places her 39 RBIs away from breaking UNC’s career record — something that she’s on pace to break well before her junior season ends. 

Oh, and Morales is clutch at the plate, too, hitting a go-ahead grand slam in the top of the 10th inning in the winner-take-all Big Sky Tournament championship game against Portland State last season to all but seal the Bears’ ticket back to the NCAA Tournament.

Ella Gonzales, UTL

Gonzales, like Morales, arrived in Greeley for the 2023 season as a wide-eyed freshman trying to make their mark on a program that hadn’t seen success for a while. The Texan didn’t quite hit the ground running right away at UNC like Morales did, but once she got cooking during her sophomore campaign last year, she evolved into one of the Bears’ most important players. 

Gonzales sparingly started as a freshman, earning a spot in the lineup 14 times out of 27 appearances, but she became an indispensable part of the lineup last season by appearing and starting in all 53 games while batting .351, tops on the roster and especially crucial for a UNC team that actually ranked second-to-last in the Big Sky in team batting average. Very patient and difficult to strike out with just 12 Ks on her record last year from 154 at-bats, Gonzales also added 17 doubles to her stat totals from a season ago — second in the Big Sky, only behind Morales — as she’ll bring additional returning reinforcements to a squad now defending both conference regular-season and tournament titles this spring.

Notable Newcomers

Krista Francia, INF

A high school teammate of Morales at Paradise Honors High School in Surprise, Arizona, Francia will be both closer to home and playing alongside a familiar face at Northern Colorado this season, her newest destination after spending the first two seasons of her college softball career at Maine. 

With the Black Bears, Francia started all 97 games she played in as a middle infielder (with all of her starts this past season coming at shortstop), logging identical .246 averages in each season with a strong .981 fielding percentage as a sophomore in 2024. Maine softball struggled heavily last season as it finished 5-41 overall, so Francia didn’t have many opportunities to be a part of scoring plays, but her 16 runs scored was a team-high and her 29 hits were tied for second-best on the roster. 

Francia shouldn’t have a lack of scoring opportunities with Northern Colorado — especially when the program’s best player is someone she knows well — so she could end up being a sneaky-good pull from the transfer portal when all is said and done with less of the offensive burden being put on her in Greeley.

Katie Walling, INF

Also, a player coming to Northern Colorado this season with prior D-I experience in tow, Walling spent the past three seasons at Seattle, where she had her best season with the Redhawks in 2023 as a redshirt freshman. 

That year, the San Diego native batted a solid .291 with five home runs and 25 RBIs across 50 starts for a team that went 36-20 overall, closing her time at Seattle with career totals of 80 starts across 106 games played, a .274 average, seven homers, 34 RBIs and just 20 strikeouts in 237 at-bats. Y

et to make an NCAA Tournament trip in her career, Walling’s newest stop will be gunning for its third one in a row as she’ll look to add some depth to the Bears’ lineup with veteran experience to boot.

2025 Northern Colorado Softball Roster 

(Name, Position, Class, Hometown)

• Grace Algrim, RHP, Jr., Elburn, Ill.
• Malaina Alifano, INF, Fr., Half Moon Bay, Calif.
• Kenzie Carter, C, Fr., Colby, Kan.
• Nya Chacon, OF, Gr., Loveland, Colo.
• Aiyana Cordero, INF, Soph., Denver
• Isabelle DiNapoli, RHP, Sr., Littleton, Colo.
• Krista Francia, INF, Jr., Surprise, Ariz.
• Jaycie Gandert, INF, Sr., Rio Rancho, N.M.
• Abby Gaona, OF, Jr., Peoria, Ariz.
• Ella Gonzales, UTL, Jr., Helotes, Texas
• Emma Harrington, C/INF, Soph., Parker, Colo.
• Sabrina Javorsky, C, Sr., Ladera Ranch, Calif.
• Baylie Kakallis, INF, Jr., Whittier, Calif.
• Jazzy Longo, OF, Soph., Lake Forrest, Calif.
• Tivoli Martinez, RHP, Fr., Helotes, Texas
• Amailee Morales, INF, Jr., Surprise, Ariz.
• Quinn Myers-Lenz, INF, Soph., Cave Creek, Ariz.
• Emma Osborne, OF, R-Soph., Erie, Colo.
• Annie Polaski, UTL, Fr., Livermore, Calif.
• Kamana Powell, OF, Fr., Fresno, Calif.
• Alina Quinney, OF, Soph., Gilbert, Ariz.
• Grace Sackett, RHP, Fr., Erie, Colo.
• Katie Thomson, OF, Soph., Firestone, Calif.
• Katie Walling, INF, Jr., San Diego
• Anna Wilming, RHP, Soph., Columbus, Ohio 

Where Is The Puerto Vallarta Softball Tournament?  

The Puerto Vallarta College Challenge is at Nancy Almaraz Field in Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

The Puerto Vallarta College Challenge 2025 Stream

The Puerto Vallarta College Challenge is streaming on FloSoftball and the FloSports app. Replays of the games, highlights and more breaking news will be on both platforms. 

You make the call 𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞 or 𝐎𝐮𝐭?

The @uwsoftball vs @ou_softball was a wild one 😳 this early in the season@pvcollegesb#PVCC #collegesoftball #ncaasoftball #d1softball pic.twitter.com/rwLewNE6Iq

— FloSoftball (@FloSoftball) February 10, 2024

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