Sydney Romero is in her seventh year of professional softball with some of the best numbers of her career. She’s always been consistent, routinely hitting above .300 regardless of the team or league.

But this season, she’s blasted more home runs than in the last five years combined, with hits and RBIs up too. Meanwhile, strikeouts are still rare for Romero.

How is the veteran continuously improving despite an increasingly demanding offseason as a coach on the Oregon Softball staff?

“My training in the off-season has been very consistent; my strength has gone up,” Romero reflected while at the Sparks’ home field in Oklahoma City.

“I am in the best shape of my life, the strongest I’ve ever been in my college and professional career.”

Beyond the newly loaded power, Romero has a preparation and process that reeks of greatness.

Focus On Feel

Romero has batted third all of 2026 in a lineup that is one of the toughest to face in the league, hitting two spots behind reigning batting champion Sydney McKinney and following up Maya Brady. She cannot be pitched around, which is why she’s second in the AUSL in RBIs.

She keeps it simple, looking to be on time and hit the ball hard, but comfort in the box comes from repetition with intent.

“I was very particular with how I went about my training. If I got 30 swings, then those 30 swings are my best swings,” Romero said.

“I like to do the same thing over and over again. I feel like that’s one piece that kind of goes missing in just sports in general, is just the boring work of doing things over and over and over again, even when things are going well.”

And now that it’s going better than ever, Romero says her job is to not take away the boring work. Offensively, she can rely on “feel” within her swing. It’s visible from the on deck circle to her motions before a pitch.

She starts with a half swing, wanting the bat to feel “whippy” in her hands. Once she steps into the box, her hands are loose and open; there’s no tight grip on the bat. She’ll rest her back elbow then begin a rhythm with her front foot and hands.

“It’s pretty cool that the feel of my swing can kind of dictate what I’m going to do for the outcome.”

Training and prep has yielded the best results of her career but Romero’s smooth swing that was developed by her dad, Michael, is the same as ever.

Should Be Hitting

Michael Romero was a longtime softball and hitting coach in Murrieta, California, where he raised and trained Sydney along with her older sister Sierra and younger siblings Mikey and Sophia. The Romero family is a powerhouse within the bat and balls sports.

Sierra is an infielder for the Texas Volts who holds NCAA career records in runs and grand slams from her time at Michigan. The 2026 season is her last, retiring from pro softball after 11 years competing. Mikey is also an infielder who currently plays in the Red Sox organization with the Triple-A affiliate in Worcester. He was taken with the 24th overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft. There’s an outfielder in the family too. Sophia will begin her redshirt sophomore year at Boise State in the fall.

Their dad bravely fought cancer for many years before passing in February 2024 at 50 years old. Her was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck in 2011 and was cancer-free for about 10 years before it returned in 2021.

All of the Romero kids have spoken of the skill by standard and character that their dad and mom Melissa instilled in them. Even as a pro, Sydney still hit with her dad in their backyard cage. Now that he’s passed, she’s created a way to connect with him like they did in the cage and honor his knowledge.

Sydney designed custom training and hitting notebooks named “Should Be Hitting.” It was her dad’s mantra.

“It was always ‘should be hitting.’ If I don’t have a good day the only thing he would tell me is, ‘Well, you should be hitting still.'” Sydney rembered with a laugh.

“There’s always more work to be done. And I think that’s something that’s always resonated with our family is whether you’re doing good or bad, like there’s always something you could be working on.”

The journal follows a format for scouting pitchers, tracking sequences, creating a plan for at-bats, and reflecting on adjustments.

“I dedicated these hitting notebooks to him. He taught hitting lessons and he was very passionate about it and was always the person I went to to talk about hitting. I really wanted to share a lot of the things that he would go over with me to live on his legacy,” Sydney said.

But his legacy lives through her too. Sydney knows that many of the things that she says and explains, especially about hitting, were iterated by her dad. Now she shares that with the siblings and Spark teammates, and the athletes she coaches at Oregon.

She followed in his footsteps to coaching and was just promoted to associate head coach for the upcoming 2027 season. When her summer of competing as an athlete ends in August and she’ll head back to Eugene. The nine-month season of doing “the boring work” begins again.

Read more: From ‘Coach Ro’ to teammate: Oregon’s Grein and Harper play pro alongside their college coach

Above all: clutch

Sydney’s personal growth in pro softball has ebbed and flowed with the sport itself. After an All-American career at the University of Oklahoma, where she won two national titles and was at the pinnacle of college softball, she joined the now-defunct National Pro Fastpitch league. In 2020, she competed with Team Mexico at the Tokyo Olympics.

Then Sydney joined Athletes Unlimited to play in its unique format and has been playing in the league since 2021. And last year, she was drafted by the Talons and won the inaugural Athletes Unlimited Softball League championship.

Sydney blasted a home run in Game Two of the series. Her bat was the one that put the Talons on the board and was enough to seal the deal for the title.

That hitter, the clutch hitter, is how she defines herself.

“I feel like I’ve always stepped up in big moments; it’s never too big for me,” Sydney said. “My heart’s not beating fast. I’m pretty calm. I’m not worried about the outcome.”

When the training is done, the prep is there, and the mechanics are sound, there’s only one thing left for Sydney to do – swing it like she’s been crafting it all her life.

“I want to do damage. And that’s my goal every single time: hit the ball hard.”


Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on Instagram @savvyco.