UCLA star Grant breaks 31-year-old home run mark with 38th blast of season

UCLA senior Megan Grant is having quite a month, just 11 days into May.

After being selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2026 Athletes Unlimited Softball League Draft on May 4th, Grant hit her 38th home run of the year Sunday, breaking the single-season NCAA Division I softball record. The high mark was previously held by Arizona's Laura Espinoza, set in 1995.

Grant swatted an 0-2 pitch to center field against No. 1 Nebraska’s Jordy Frahm -- the Big Ten Pitcher of the Year -- in the third inning of the Big Ten Championship Game, putting the No. 8 Bruins ahead 2-0. Grant raced around the bases and was mobbed by teammates at home plate.

"To be able to do that, it's just, it's surreal," Grant said, according to the Associated Press. The AP added that Grant had the ball in her backpack afterward and planned to give it to her grandmother. "I'm just so grateful for the opportunity I was blessed with and just to follow the people that were before me it's just an honor."

While Nebraska pulled away from UCLA with seven unanswered runs the rest of the game, Grant’s moment will live on. She homered in all three Big Ten Tournament games over the weekend to reach the mark. In doing so, she pulled away from Oklahoma’s Kendall Wells, who entered the weekend with 36 but did not homer in three games.

Grant will have to fight to hold onto that record against Wells, though she’ll additionally have a chance for more history with the Bruins, who earned the No. 8 seed for the NCAA Tournament and will host a regional. Her 85 long balls sit just five shy of Stacey Nuveman’s career record in the program.