Madonna softball looking to close 52-4 season with NAIA title

A 93% winning percentage in any sport can be classified as elite.

In a sport with as many games and day-to-day variance as softball, that feat stands out more.

The 2024 Madonna softball team lives in that rarefied air with a 52-4 record at the NAIA level. The Crusaders won 13 times as many games as they lost this season, with three of the four losses coming by just one run, had a perfect 28-0 record in the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) and a perfect 12-0 road record.

"They're showing up," Madonna softball coach Ron Pezzoni told the Free Press. "We've never had one of those days where everything went wrong or the effort wasn't there. They are big-time competitors and that's something I'm super proud of because I know how hard that is to do when you're in a long, grinding season like this."

The remarkable season continues at the NAIA College World Series in Columbus, Georgia. from Thursday to May 29. Madonna is the No. 8 seed facing against Georgia Gwinnett College at 1 p.m. Thursday. After sweeping through conference play and the WHAC conference tournament, Madonna had to battle back after dropping an early game to Northwestern College (Iowa) in the opening round of the NAIA tournament and advanced by knocking off Northwestern twice on May 16 to advance past the double-elimination first round to the 10-team World Series.

Pezzoni, who played six seasons as a minor league and independent league baseball player in the 90s, described his team as "pros" with a similar mindset he experienced in clubhouses as a player on professional teams. He said the way they carry themselves has prevented any lulls in performance, keeping the team locked in for each game.

"This is a fun team, they have a good time," Pezzoni said. "But when it's time to get it done, they can kind of flip that switch and it's all business. And for a lot of kids, it's tough to flip that switch on and off, but they do a great job."

Of course, mindset alone doesn't win 52 softball games. Madonna also has the talent to be one of the premier NAIA teams in the country with a roster where every all but one player grew up in Michigan.

Madonna had 10 players on the first or second All-WHAC teams at the end of the season, including pitcher of the year, Maeson Schlaud, and newcomer of the year, outfielder Regan Finkbeiner. Schlaud was one of the best pitchers in the country with a 1.06 ERA and 233 strikeouts in 185⅔ innings during the regular season while also serving as an example for younger pitchers.

"(Maeson) is a perfectionist," Pezzoni said. "She knows what it takes to be great and what she needs to do in preparation for her to be great. And we've talked to so many younger pitchers, they're like 'what do I need to do' and I'm just like, watch her. That's all you need to see."

The rest of the first-team selections included Airport graduate Bailey Martin, Mackenzie Ming, Emily Biggott, Alissa Gauthier, Jessica Dunkel and Ashley Rosiewicz while Faith Peschke and Ella Thomas were second-team.

"When you win that many games, it's not going to be because you have three superstars, we can beat you a lot of different ways," Pezzoni said.

The depth of talent will be needed for Madonna in the Crusaders' first World Series appearance since 2021 to make a run to try to win the school's first national championship in softball. Pezzoni said the talent level between all 10 teams attending is relatively similar, magnifying each play's magnitude due to the slim margin of error.

"These are all good teams," Pezzoni said. "Almost all of these games, they're probably 50-50 games. Someone's going to make a mistake or someone's going to make a huge difference."

A win would be the third national championship across all sports for Madonna, the Livonia private college. Though the Crusaders have been able to recruit well already and have freshman and sophomores already contributing, a national championship would only boost the program's stature as one of the few Michigan softball teams that can make deep postseason runs.

"It's a huge deal," Pezzoni said. "That's how we kind of sell our program to some extent is, what other programs has that piece that they can say, 'we legitimately have a chance to be playing at the end of May every year.'"

And of course, nothing is more exhilarating than the prospect of winning, as Madonna has experienced as much as anyone this season.

"It's all very good teams and we have as good a chance as anybody if we play our game," Pezzoni said.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Madonna softball reaches NAIA World Series after dominant 52-4 season