Gaston College's record-setting softball season ends with 4th-place NJCAA World Series finish

Gaston College's magical softball season came to a close Friday night in an 11-3 elimination game defeat to Wallace State-Hanceville, Ala., in the 2025 National Junior College Athletic Association World Series at Pacific Avenue Athletic Complex in Yuma, Ariz.

The Rhinos finished in fourth place of the 20-team, double-elimination event. It marks the best finish by any sport in Gaston College athletic history and is the best Region 10 Division I softball finish since Spartanburg Methodist finished third in 1994.

It also ended the season with a 63-5 overall which is the best record for any sport in school history.

"We just ran out of gas and picked a bad time to play bad defense," Gaston College coach Mike Steuerwald said. "But the biggest disappointment is that this group won't get a chance to play together anymore.
"It's hard to put into words what this group accomplished."

After winning three of their first four games in the World Series, including an 8-6 elimination win of Crowder, Mo., that concluded at 11:30 p.m. local time (2:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday morning), the Rhinos fell behind quickly in Friday's contest.

Wallace State scored two runs in the first inning, three in the third, one in the fourth and two in the sixth before Gaston College's Sarah Johnson averted the school's first shutout loss since March 8, 2024 with a three-run home run in the bottom of the sixth.

Johnson and Skye Harrington had the Rhinos' two hits in Friday's loss that saw Gaston College's defense commit seven errors that led to six unearned runs.

"This has been such a great group overall," Steuerwald said of his team. "I'm just really proud of this team. They gutted it out and found ways to deal with 105-degree heat and getting off the field at 11:30 last night.
"They competed and kept working hard all season long."