Tuesday evening at Smith Family Stadium in Durham, N.C., the Athletes Unlimited Softball League will enter its second season under this format. The Carolina Blaze will host the Portland Cascade at 5 p.m. ET.
The Blaze are a loaded and versatile team, and general manager Dana Sorensen built this roster to withstand adversity and play to its advantages. In 2025, the Blaze fell into injury trouble, especially inside the pitching staff. Now in 2026, the roster holds six arms ready to go when called upon.
The foundation, though, is a veteran one. Sorensen built this staff around left-hander Keilani Ricketts, a former Oklahoma standout who has won multiple gold medals and has pitched professionally for more than a decade.
She is not the radar-gun headline some of her teammates are, and she does not need to be. Ricketts changes speeds, locates well, and rarely lets hitters square her up. Just as valuable is what she offers between starts. On a staff full of young arms, she is the steady, level presence a young group can lean on.
What makes this team an interesting follow is the versatility. Not only are the position players able to fill different roles, but so are pitchers Aleshia Ocasio and Devyn Netz. Both have been two-way players their whole careers, and for Ocasio in particular, look for more of that if given the chance.
“We realized by the end, you have Aleshia Ocasio, who can do absolutely everything on the field,” Sorensen told Southeastern Softball Wire, referring to last season. “There is not a position she cannot play at the highest of levels, so we wanted to lean into that. She’s a player-pitcher, pitcher-player, so I was like, ‘Well, we have a player in her.'”
Ocasio is a high-level veteran. She wants to do everything, and it doesn’t faze her in the least. All she needs is the opportunity.
“I think whenever I look at my game in softball, period, I’m always gonna take reps in the box,” Ocasio told Southeastern Softball Wire. “I’m always gonna hit. I’m always gonna play the field. I’m always gonna pitch. I think it just depends on getting the opportunity.”
Associate head coach Lindsay Leftwich shed some light on Ocasio’s work leading into the season.
“She went to work this offseason, rebuilt some things in her swing, and has been really diligent about what can make her great now as she has gotten a little older,” Leftwich said. “She’s really putting some stuff together. We scrimmaged the Bandits on Friday, and she had a two-run jack off the foul pole. So she’s doing all the things, and I think people will be really excited just to watch how dynamic the Blaze can be.”
The Blaze’s versatility could be one of the most intriguing storylines of the season. Sorensen has built a team that could be hard to plan for.
“Devyn Netz can flat out swing it, and she’s a Gold Glove first baseman from college, so again, we have another player-pitcher,” Sorensen said. “So I said to Kara, ‘Let’s keep them as pitchers who can play, let’s put them in the field, let them hit, put them in the lineup. Then we can build our pitching roster with more depth, so we can carry six arms instead of five, given the roster is only 16.’ We’re not handcuffed at all, having six.”
So the sixth pitcher turned out to be a two-time SEC Pitcher of the Year and All-American in Karlyn Pickens. Why would Sorensen use the No. 1 overall pick in the collegiate draft on another arm when there were already five on staff? It’s simple.
“Well, we had five pitchers, so why would you,” Sorensen said. “We lost [Alana] Vawter in the allocation draft, and [Carley] Hoover. But to me it was like, ‘I’m going to get a game changer. I’m going to get a program changer.'”
Pickens is no ordinary insurance arm. The Weaverville, N.C., native fits the profile Sorensen finds valuable for combating the elite hitters in this league.
“Karlyn can throw down and up, and a changeup,” Sorensen said. “You look at this league, and you’ve got a lot of great hitters who drive the ball to deep parts of the park, and she can keep the ball on the ground at an extremely high rate against elite hitters, so that was a huge factor.”
Even as great as Pickens has been while at Tennessee, she still has room for growth and can turn it up more.
“I don’t think she’s hit her ceiling. I don’t think she’s as good as you’re going to see,” Sorensen said. “She’s competitive. If you watch her, when she struggles, if she gets hit a little bit, she elevates. It goes to the next level right away.”
Pickens is also one of the better pure athletes Sorensen has been around, a former high school volleyball and basketball player who can flat-out run. Sorensen learned from a source who has seen Pickens work up close for four years.
“Karen Weekly at Tennessee told me she’s one of the fastest people on their team sprint-wise,” Sorensen said.
For all the velocity and the headlines that come with owning the fastest arm in the sport, Sorensen circled back to what makes Pickens more than just a great player.
“Not a single person I’ve ever talked to has said anything other than she is a fantastic teammate who just wants to win, and is 100 percent team first,” Sorensen said, “which is hard to do when you’re the most talked-about, hardest-throwing pitcher we’ve ever seen.”
The depth shows up behind the plate, too. The Blaze carry two Team USA catchers in Reese Atwood and Kayla Kowalik, and Sorensen has no plans to run either one into the ground.
“Kayla’s been in a coaching role all season with Texas Tech, so I want to protect her legs,” Sorensen said. “It’s tough to go in and just catch every series. Reese has been catching, and Reese is an exceptional defensive catcher as well as a great power hitter. So they’ll both be behind the dish, and they both are on Team USA, so they both have caught.”
Kowalik gives Sorensen another way to keep a bat in the lineup without the wear of catching three straight. She has played outfield and told the staff she can handle first base if needed, which lets Atwood settle in behind the plate while Kowalik moves around the diamond.
It also sets up a battery worth watching. Atwood and Pickens are not strangers. The two have already worked together, and Sorensen plans to lean on that comfort early.
“Her and Karlyn are very close, so I think they’re both excited to be a battery together, so we’ll lean into that a little bit,” Sorensen said. “But you’ll see both of them for sure.”
The build was not only about run prevention and flexibility. Sorensen wanted to add some power at the plate.
“I wanted more slug. I wanted more lift, get the ball in the air, do some damage with the swing,” Sorensen said. “So that was an intent as well going into the draft in terms of who we were adding on that side.”
Alyssa Brito brings some of that pop. So does Dakota Kennedy from Arkansas. Then Jenna Laird is a name that may not carry the same weight nationally but has quietly stacked up a strong camp.
“Jenna Laird has had a really, really good training camp and looks really good, and she can swing it,” Sorensen said. “She needs to get her barrel to the ball all the time.”
Leftwich sees a player the rest of the league is about to see firsthand.
“I think just in the consistency that she brings and how even she is, people are gonna be surprised by Jenna Laird,” Leftwich said. “She was playing in the other league for a little while. We saw her be great at Missouri. She’s not this big household name, but those of us that have watched her play in the SEC for a little while, we know how good she really is.”
All of it points to Tuesday. Pickens will not get the ball in the opener, but Sorensen plans to bring her along, penciling her in for Game 2, the ESPN matchup, before working her into high-leverage spots as the season unfolds. For a roster built to bend without breaking, it starts Tuesday.
