College Baseball Trailblazer: A Woman’s Path to the Pros

Beating the Odds: Division III Misconceptions

Greenwood’s route to suiting up in college baseball was anything but linear. As a high school catcher, she entered a sport few women had played at the NCAA level and navigated recruiting largely on her own. Coaches often didn’t respond to her emails, and others seemed unsure about adding a woman to their roster.

But academics provided another way to find the right fit. Greenwood’s family faced financial challenges, and she understood that strong grades could help make her goal possible. D3 athletics tied together her two core priorities: a mechanical engineering degree without abandoning her college baseball ambitions.

I knew I couldn’t rely on an athletic scholarship. I just wanted a school that was open-minded and would give me a chance.

Her girlfriend calls that quality “random grit,” describing Greenwood’s resolve to accomplish something regardless of what others might say. Baseball was the one pursuit she couldn’t let go.

Division III programs don’t offer athletic scholarships, but support remains widely available. Roughly 80% of D3 student-athletes receive some form of grant or nonathletic scholarship, according to the NCAA. At the University of Rochester, Greenwood received substantial financial aid, making it feasible to attend without taking on significant debt.

After submitting a last-minute college application that brought her to western New York, she met head coach Joe Reina and found a baseball program willing to evaluate her on her own merits.

The avenue was real, and so was the competition. Upon deciding on Rochester, Greenwood made a promise to herself: “You owe yourself four opportunities [to walk on] every single year. If you don’t make it, fine. You owe yourself those opportunities.”

Making College Baseball History

Rochester cut Greenwood as a freshman, kept her on the practice roster as a sophomore and added her to the team as a junior. As one of only a handful of women competing in college baseball nationwide, she initially heard reservations from teammates about having a female player on the Yellowjackets’ roster.

That perception shifted as they saw her catch high-velocity pitching, including fastballs in the mid-90s.

On April 18, 2021, she reached a milestone years in the making, becoming the first American woman to catch in an NCAA baseball game when she took the field against Clarkson University.

“I was super nervous,” Greenwood said. “And I think when I was in it, I was just playing baseball. After the game, I was like, ‘Holy crap, I just did that.’”

The 5-foot-6 backstop established herself in the program while keeping pace with a demanding mechanical engineering curriculum. She earned Liberty League All-Academic honors in both 2021 and 2022 and graduated magna cum laude with a 3.9 GPA.

That academic foundation opened another door in baseball: a research and development fellowship with the Philadelphia Phillies. Working with data and biomechanics in the club’s R&D department, she gradually moved to a full-time focus on analytics.

In 2024, Greenwood transitioned into an on-field role as a minor league development coach with the Phillies’ High-A affiliate, the Jersey Shore BlueClaws. She primarily worked with catchers and contributed to the team’s daily game planning. Despite two and a half years of big-league experience, some still questioned her place in baseball.

A lot of people have comments about women being in that space and kind of feel like baseball is kind of just for the men and just the good ol’ boys.

Meanwhile, Greenwood’s playing career continued breaking new ground. She joined the U.S. women’s national team program in 2018 and earned a spot among its top-20 players in 2023 and 2024. At that summer’s Women’s Baseball World Cup, she helped the team win silver, bringing a childhood ambition to the international stage.

Keeping her own game sharp and working in professional baseball required some ingenuity. Greenwood used the Phillies’ facilities, enlisted coworkers to help with practice reps and catching in a men’s league on Sundays.

A College Baseball First, a Professional Baseball Future

A year later, Greenwood joined the baseball staff at Vassar College, another Division III program in the Liberty League. The position kept her connected to coaching and left room to pursue other competitive opportunities on the diamond.

The next turning point arrived with the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL), born from a conversation between businessman Keith Stein and Justine Siegal, a longtime advocate for women’s baseball and founder of Baseball For All. Stein pitched the idea to Siegal, and the two began assembling the league, securing investor backing before announcing the project in October 2024.

For Greenwood, the WPBL made a pro playing career possible, a prospect she had long envisioned. It marked the return of professional women’s baseball to the U.S. for the first time since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League folded in 1954. The WPBL held its inaugural draft in November 2025, selecting 120 players from 10 countries to form its four teams.

“You only get to play for so long, and I wasn’t ready for anyone else to tell me when that was going to be over,” she said.

The Boston Hunters selected the Rochester graduate with the fourth pick of the third round. She took her place behind the plate, where she’d played since childhood, and also served as a coach during the season.

At the opening ceremonies on Aug. 1 at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Ill., Greenwood stood near second base and looked out at a sold-out stadium. She began to cry as Maybelle Blair, the 99-year-old All-American Girls Professional Baseball League pioneer, threw out the first pitch. For Greenwood, Blair’s presence made the moment feel even more real.

She finished her debut campaign with a .261 batting average, 5 RBI and a .631 OPS across nine games, plus 32 putouts and 3 assists at catcher.

She [Greenwood] understands the grind, the development, what it takes to play in the minor leagues, watching players get better every day. She totally gets what the process is about.

— Eric Young Sr., manager of the Los Angeles Queens, in an interview with yd3

Greenwood still has more to achieve, both on the field and in helping shape the future of women’s baseball. The next chapter, like the poem itself, remains unwritten.