Howard University Softball Coach Victoria “Tori” Tyson fully believes that nothing should come easy for her student-athletes.  

After a 32-13 campaign in 2024, including a 16-5 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) record, the Bison went 0-2 in the MEAC Tournament — a disappointing end to a season Tyson thought should have been much better. 

Tyson, who is in her seventh season at Howard, decided the 2025 season would look and feel much different. To play like the best, she wanted her team to play the best. She worked to ensure that the schedule included nationally ranked teams such as UCLA, Nebraska, and Maryland.  

“You have to be able to do hard work together and that’s exactly what we did,” Tyson said. “We trained hard, and we played hard, tough games. Howard women are special, and these ladies have shown me all season long that I always had the most prepared team on the field.” 

On Friday, Tyson’s team will aim to show how prepared they are when they face the 14th ranked Duke University (38-18) in the Durham Regional of the NCAA Softball Tournament. The game, which begins at 12 p.m., will air live on the ACC Network and stream live on ESPN+.  

The Bison had a dominant season with a MEAC-high 392 hits — 100 more than the next best team (South Carolina State with 288) — and 245 runs (besting South Carolina State’s 169). And the team earned regular season honors — MEAC Rookie of the Year Lauryn Jones and MEAC All-Tournament selection Mia Gonzalez — as well as MEAC Softball Tournament honors — Most Outstanding Player of the Year Ameenah Ballenger and Most Outstanding Coach (Tyson). Additionally, a total of nine Bison were named to the All-MEAC First Team: pitcher Julia Holt, 1st Base Alyssa Vasquez, 2nd Base Lealani Ricks, 3rd Base Kenna Higa, shortstop Sidney Fletcher, catcher Merci Hart, outfielder Lauryn Jones, relief pitcher Mia Gonzalez, and utility player Ameenah Ballenger. And the team was not just successful on the field this season. They were winners in the classroom too, with 14 team members named to the MEAC All-Academic Team, an honor for student-athletes with cumulative GPAs of 3.0 or higher. 

The Bison earned their ticket to the NCAA tournament after storming through the MEAC Tournament last week with a 5-1 win over Morgan State University, a 17-5 thrashing of Delaware State University, and a 6-1 victory over South Carolina State University in the championship game on Saturday.  

The accomplishment comes on the heels of the ladies earning the program’s first regular season MEAC title in 15 years and winning a program-record 21 conference games. Tyson herself was a standout pitcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she appeared in the 2009 NCAA Regional and had a career high 47 starts in 2010 before serving as team captain in 2011. As a coach, she had stops at Bethune Cookman College, California State University-Fullerton, Maryland, and the National Pro Fastpitch League’s Chicago Bandits before being hired by Howard University Athletics Director Kery Davis in November 2018. Tyson earned her 150th career win during last week’s MEAC Tournament. 

Davis has been impressed with how Tyson has turned around the program and is confident that her players will continue to shine bright on the field as they face Duke University and perhaps become the first HBCU team to win an NCAA Division I Softball Tournament game. 

“Our goal remains the same as it has been throughout this entire season: to win. Coach Tyson developed a tough (regular season) schedule to prepare the team for this very moment,” Davis said. “I don’t expect our team to be intimidated by any team they face.”