Louisiana Ruling Clears Path for Three Ole Miss Softball Players to Return
Three Ole Miss softball players are cleared to return to college softball thanks to the same Louisiana ruling that is allowing Paytn Monticelli and Jalia Lassiter to return to LSU.
Emilee Boyer, Kennedy Bunker and Ryann Star were given a fifth year of eligibility on Thursday after a Louisiana judge granted them an injunction.
None of the three student-athletes played professional softball after the 2026 collegiate season.
Paytn Monticelli and Jalia Lassiter testified in court Thursday about their efforts to return to LSU after playing professionally this summer.
— Maren Angus (@Maren_Angus) September 4, 2026
Monticelli won a PSL championship with the Atlanta Smoke, while Lassiter played for the AUSL Texas Volts.https://t.co/vkrgYLsd6R
Judge William Jorden of the 19th Judicial District Court of Louisiana approved a preliminary injunction prohibiting the NCAA and Southeastern Conference from punishing any school that signs and plays the 44 athletes who sued the NCAA in Louisiana state court as part of Jack Pyburn, et al. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association to play a fifth and final season of college sports.
In June, the NCAA created a new rule allowing athletes five seasons of competition within a five-year window and it did not apply to student-athletes who graduated high school in 2022.
As a result, many athletes filed legal paperwork across the country to retain their final year of eligibility.
The SEC took matters further when it implemented its own rules banning member schools from rostering former NFL, NBA and WNBA players.
Shortly after the ruling, the SEC released a statement:
"We disagree with the court's decision," the SEC said.
"The SEC's presidents and chancellors unanimously adopted a clear and reasonable standard: member universities should not play former professional athletes on their rosters. The conference and its member universities have the right to establish, through agreed-upon governance procedures, the rules under which they voluntarily compete and to expect those rules to be followed.
"The SEC will continue to defend this standard, the principle of fair competition, and the conference's authority to govern competition among its member universities."
Boyer spent the first three seasons of her college softball career at Division II West Texas A&M, where she was named the 2025 NFCA Division II National Player of the Year, the 2025 D2CCA Ron Lenz Player of the Year, a 2025 CWSA Honda Women's Athlete of the Year Finalist and a unanimous 2025 All-American, on both the NFCA and D2CCA First Teams.
As a senior at Ole Miss, Boyer appeared in 28 games with a 12-14 record. She had a 4.03 earned run average across 175.1 innings with 14 complete games, two shutouts and three saves.
Bunker started 52 of the 57 games she appeared in during the 2026 season and was sixth on the team with a .268 batting average. Her 14 home runs were the second-most, trailing only Madi George (23), and her 31 runs batted in were good for fifth.
Starr started 33 games in 2026 and competed in 53 games, primarily at third base. She hit .189 with a career-high four doubles, while adding two RBIs, 11 walks and nine stolen bases.
The eligibility for the three players would bump the Ole Miss roster to 29 for the 2027 season.
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Maren Angus 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+.