Softball On SI

How a Florida State Softball Star is Driving Change for the Iowa Hawkeyes

First-year Iowa head coach is determined to keep Iowa natives at home moving forward.
Maren Angus-Coombs|
Marin Heller is a freshman at Florida State and is an Iowa native.
Marin Heller is a freshman at Florida State and is an Iowa native. | FSU Athletics

The Iowa Hawkeyes played through a living nightmare last season. Their head coach took a leave of absence, the interim head coach quit, and then the next interim head coach wasn't hired back.

Instead, Iowa hired a Hawkeye legend in Stacy May-Johnson to make the program relevant once again.

May-Johnson played at Iowa from 2003-06, where she was a three-time All-Big Ten selection and the 2003 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. She was also part of the Big Ten regular season and tournament championship teams in 2003.

When the Hawkeyes took the field on Friday at the JoAnne Graf Classic on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, an Iowa native was in the starting lineup but not for Iowa.

FSU freshman Marin Heller grew up in West Des Moines and has become the starting second baseman for the Seminoles. While playing for the ACC powerhouse, she is also driving change for a program that hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 2009.

Heller was 0-for-2 against the Hawkeyes but scored three runs in FSU's 12-3 win. Overall, she is batting .412 and leads the Seminoles with six runs scored.

"I think it's really, really tough to play a game on a Saturday where there is a player on the other team, who may be the best player on that team that's from the state of Iowa," May-Johnson said in a preseason interview about Heller. "We can't have that. We need to retain that talent here."

Of the 25 players on the Iowa roster, only seven are from the state. Compared to Iowa State, which only has four Iowa natives, May-Johnson is already winning the border battle. But the big picture shows something else.

The national landscape showcases student-athletes all over the country making a difference at some of the nation's top programs.

Jalen Adams transferred to Arizona after spending her entire life in Iowa, playing high school ball at Fort Dodge and then spending three seasons with the Hawkeyes.

Washington has two players from the state in junior catcher Jadyn Glab and freshman infielder Zuri Patterson. Freshman Cassie Johnson is at Texas Tech, senior pitcher Josey Marron is at South Carolina after starting her career at Mississippi State, and the most popular Iowa native in college softball right now is reigning Women's College World Series Most Outstanding Player and national champion Teagan Kavan, a junior at Texas.

For May-Johnson, she wants to prevent players of this caliber from escaping the state. Imagine what an Iowa roster would look like if pitchers like Adams, Marron, and Kavan were the starters?

The Hawkeyes have an uphill battle in a conference with WCWS hopefuls like UCLA, Oregon, and Nebraska, but building a consistent, gritty program with tough and competitive players might get them back into a Regional.

Maybe, just maybe, May-Johnson can get the Hawkeyes back there in 2026.

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Maren Angus-Coombs
MAREN ANGUS-COOMBS

Maren Angus-Coombs was born in Los Angeles and raised in Nashville, Tenn. She is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and has been a sports writer since 2008. She has been covering college softball since 2016 for various outlets including Softball America, ESPNW and Hurrdat Sports. She is currently the managing editor of Softball On SI and also serves as an analyst for Nebraska softball games on Nebraska Public Media and B1G+.

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