McKenna Nygaard batted .284 last season with eight doubles, a triple, two home runs, 16 RBIs and 25 runs scored last season as the Majettes won the WDA Tournament and advanced to the state title game. Minot High Softball

The incoming crop of talent for the Minot High softball team has some big cleats to fill this season following the departure of one of its most successful senior classes in program history.

The Majettes enter the 2026 campaign having lost seven seniors to graduation, including all-state selection Halle Baker and all-WDA picks Sydney Bartsch and Raegan Terrel. Minot High finished 28-7 overall last year and 14-4 in the WDA, finishing as state runner-up to Williston in their final year together.

There will be plenty of fresh faces occupying those uniforms this season, as the Majettes return just three players with varsity experience. Senior Darby Mowbray was an all-WDA selection last year after hitting .439 with 14 doubles and seven triples to go along with 18 RBIs and 35 runs scored. She was third on the team in batting average and second in total hits (47), doubles and triples.

Mowbray is the lone senior on the team this season and will take what she learned from last year’s senior class and pass it on to the younger players as the leader of the group.

“I learned how important culture is,” Mowbray said. “All those seniors were so close with each other and how important that is and for the team with how they all work together and how everything flows. They just knew each other and how each other worked and I thought that was important and I’m trying to keep that going this year.”

Also returning are junior McKenna Nygaard and sophomore Grace Burdick. The duo combined for 52 hits – 17 doubles, a triple, two home runs – 37 RBIs and 50 runs scored. Minot High’s outgoing seniors provided 179 hits, 53 doubles, 12 triples, 13 home runs, 147 RBIs and 146 runs. As a team last year, the Majettes batted .365 with 315 hits, 90 doubles, 23 triples, 17 home runs, 237 RBIs and 278 runs scored.

The seniors’ presence will be missed in the batter’s box, but even more so in the pitcher’s circle. Baker, Bartsch and Terrel accounted for 187 of the 195.1 total innings pitched, all of the team’s wins and 197 of the 200 strikeouts. Terrel led the group with a 1.89 ERA. The Majettes’ pitching staff had a 3.40 ERA.

“We lost all our pitching, so we’re rebounding pitching and catching,” Minot High coach Gerard Cederstrom said. “We’re rebuilding everything. We’re rebuilding up the middle. We’re rebuilding our outfield. I don’t know if it’s rebuilding or restocking or whatever you want to call it.”

The pitching duties will primarily fall on Nygaard, junior Taryn Dalton, freshman Daysi Alm and eighth grader Fisher Anderson. Nygaard pitched 7.1 innings and Alm threw an inning last season.

Minot High’s roster will be heavily populated by middle schoolers and freshmen, but some of the expectations remain the same.

“We’re going to have some of the same expectations,” Cederstrom said. “We try and instill in them our program where it’s to come out and play hard knowing you’re going to make mistakes and not letting it get you down. You learn from your mistakes but come out and play hard and give it your all. Whatever happens, happens.”

When the Majettes open their season on Tuesday, March 31, with a doubleheader against Grand Forks Central beginning at 6 p.m. at the MSU Bubble, it will be the first varsity experience for nearly half the roster. Mowbray believes that the team’s practice style will have them prepared for the speed of the game.

“These first couple of weeks are super important because we always practice at full speed all the time,” Mowbray said. “It is overwhelming to most of the girls, especially the younger girls. But we do that in order for the game to slow down in their mind. When it is slower during the game, it seems to flow better. Those first couple of games and making them think faster definitely helps with all of that.”

Cederstrom expects there to be some nerves amongst his newcomers, though he said that sometimes it works the opposite of what one might expect, where they don’t realize they should be nervous at the beginning of the season and therefore are calm, only to become more nervous late in the season.

“We’ll be working hard on teaching that the moment’s not too big,” Cederstrom said. “We’ll have seventh graders out there. We’ll have eighth graders out there. We’ll have freshmen. Those kids are going to have to come out and I’m sure they’re going to be nervous and I expect that. I expect them to be excited, but just go play. Handle what you can handle and be you.”

This year ushers in the next chapter for Minot High softball. The departed senior class helped the Majettes reach new heights. They finished with a record of 108-23 overall and 60-10 in WDA play since their freshmen year. They won the program’s first WDA Tournament as sophomores in 2023 and again last year. They claimed two WDA regular season titles to give the program three overall. The departed seniors were part of the last three state tournaments, advancing to the championship game in 2023 and 2025. The 2023 trip to state was Minot High’s first since three straight trips between 2017-19.

The rest of the West Region has taken notice as to what the Majettes have lost, voting them ninth of 11 teams in the preseason coaches’ poll. Defending state champion Williston received 100 points and 10 of the 11 first-place votes. Dickinson was second with 90 points, followed by Bismarck High (82), Jamestown (82) and Bismarck Legacy (59). The Demons received the other first-place vote.

“Williston has everybody back but one player, so they’re going to be loaded,” Cederstrom said. “They are going to be the team that everyone is looking up to. Dickinson is always solid. Bismarck High is always solid. You’re going to see a lot of younger kids playing on most teams, it just might not be four or five middle schoolers starting like we might be having.”

The Majettes received 36 points, above only Turtle Mountain (17) and Watford City (12).

“We’ve got a lot of younger girls that are showing a lot of potential and they are already improving throughout our practices this year and I have high hopes this year,” Mowbray said. “I’ve seen our rankings and that we’re in the bottom three, but I honestly feel like we’re going to do better than that this year.”