UCLA senior Megan Grant, a 2022 graduate of Aragon High School, circles the bases after hitting her 38th home run of the year to break the NCAA Division I single-season softball record Saturday in the Big Ten Tournament championship game against University of Nebraska at Maryland Softball Stadium in College Park, Maryland.
There’s a new NCAA Division I softball queen. And her name is Megan Grant.
UCLA’s senior slugger set the single-season home run record for Division I softball Saturday when she hit her 38th of the season. Grant drove an 0-2 pitch from Nebraska’s Jordy Frahm deep to left-center field for a solo home run, giving UCLA a 2-0 lead in the third inning of the Big Ten Championship Game at Maryland Softball Stadium.
Grant took the record she shared for one day in her 55th game. Arizona’s Laura Espinoza hit 37 home runs over 72 games in 1995. The chance to write her name into the record books as one of the sport’s best is why Grant committed to UCLA the summer after her eighth-grade year as an incoming freshman Aragon High School.
“To be able to do that, it’s just, it’s surreal,” Grant said of the home run record. “I’m just so grateful for the opportunity I was blessed with and just to follow the people that were before me it’s just an honor.”
Megan Grant connects for her NCAA record 38th home run.
Jan Kim Lim/UCLA AthleticsThe kid who used to revel in games of Fat Bat Wiffle Ball with her older brothers Devin and Camron after their little league games in South City Youth Baseball is now on the rise to softball super stardom. Her trajectory began Feb. 2, when she connected for her first home run of the year, a two-run shot against Elysse Hydock in a 10-1 win over Northern Colorado. Then came the UCLA single-season record April 24 with a first-inning solo shot in a 7-5 win at Washington, her first of two homers that day.
Saturday, No. 38 was in good company coming against Nebraska, as her former “Belle of the Ball” teammate at Aragon, Olivia DiNardo — on roster for the Huskers, but having yet to play in 2026 after surgery in the offseason — was in the house.
And while DiNardo and Nebraska celebrated the Big Ten Tournament championship by defeating UCLA 7-2, Grant had the historic home run ball in her backpack afterward, a gift she plans to give to her grandmother.
Down 0-2, Grant was just hoping to put the ball in play anywhere she could against Frahm.
“The pitch was up, and I had a feeling it was out once I heard the crowd cheering,” Grant said of her home run. “I kind of usually just put my head down and run as hard as I can to first base, and then I think right when I touched first I knew.”
Grant said she let out a lot of energy rounding the bases celebrating all the way to the dugout with her teammates. She thinks they were focused on the milestone before refocusing on trying to win the game.
“It’s nice to be able to do it on a big stage,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said of Grant’s record-setting home run.
Grant trailed Oklahoma freshman Kendall Wells by one homer heading into conference tournament play. Wells did not homer in Oklahoma’s loss to Georgia on Thursday in the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Grant hit home runs in each of UCLA’s three Big Ten Tournament games.
The race to see who ends up with the single-season home run record could last until the Women’s College World Series. Wells has 36 and Grant’s teammate, Jordan Woolery, has 33.
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