The Athletes Unlimited Softball League had a major shuffle on Monday night as existing players were selected to expansion franchises and new players joined the league at the AUSL Draft.
A total of 58 athletes were drafted, including 30 new additions to the AUSL from professional leagues around the world, other pro teams, and the 2025 Reserve Pool.
With two new teams – the Oklahoma City Spark and Cascade – coming into shape and fresh faces on the existing clubs, these are six storylines to emerge from draft night.
Spark returns four athletes
Every player who competed on the Oklahoma City Spark last year, while the league was independent, opted in to the draft, and the team was able to secure four athletes from that roster.
Kinzie Hansen, Maddie Penta, Haley Lee, and Sydney Sherrill will wear the Spark uniform again this summer. General Manager Kirk Walker also added another athlete with Oklahoma ties in Sydney Romero. Romero was the team’s third pick in the Expansion Draft. She was a two-time National Champion while at Oklahoma from 2016 to 2019, and after finishing her playing career, she stayed on at OU as a graduate assistant.
Jadelyn Allchin is officially a Talon
A journey that emerged during the 2025 season had a storybook ending at the draft as Jadelyn Allchin’s name was called out by General Manager Lisa Fernandez to officially join the Talons.
Allchin played in 21 games with the Talons last summer as an athlete signed out of the Reserve Player Player. On May 22, she was assigned to the team to fill the absences of players arriving late to the season, and remained on the roster because of openings left by injuries.
Despite an uncertain role on the team, Allchin became a central piece of the team’s lineup. She was second on the team in average, hitting .380 in 50 at-bats, making a case last summer to be a permanent roster fixture.
College teammates reunite
The draft also saw the linking up of multiple college teammates. Seminoles Jessi Warren and Sydney Sherrill will reunite in the Spark infield. Tiare Jennings and Riley Boone will chase an AUSL Championship together on the Volts after winning four titles at Oklahoma together. Ana Gold will back up Jala Wright once again as the Duke grads compete on the Blaze. Kendra Falby and Korbe Otis patrolled the outfield together at Florida and now will do the same on the Cascade.
Alyssa Denham is back
At the conclusion of the 2024 AU Pro Softball Season (now called All-Star Cup), pitcher Alyssa Denham wasn’t sure if she’d ever play again. She played through a fractured back with a slipped vertebra and a herniated disk until she had to have surgery in November of 2024.
She rehabbed and began pitching again with the goal to play in the AUSL. That will come to fruition this summer with the Volts, as she was selected with the team’s second pick in the Allocation Draft.
Sooners lead with 11 pros
No program is more represented in the AUSL than Oklahoma. Eleven Sooners are scattered through the league, ranging in positions and generations. They dominated the early rounds, too; four out of six picks in the first round of the Allocation Draft were OU products.
Back-to-back USA Softball Player of the Year Keilani Ricketts (Blaze) is the oldest Sooner, winning a national title in 2013. Sam Landry (Cascade) is the younger Sooner, competing on the 2025 squad before competing in her rookie season days after playing in the Women’s College World Series.
18 spots open for rookies
The upcoming rookie class is the deepest college softball has had in quite some time. That’s why 18 spots were left open by the general managers to add young talent to their roster. The Cascade left open four spots for rookies; the Bandits, Blaze, Spark, and Talons will draft three, and the Volts will have two in 2026.
Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on X @savannaecollins.
