To call the 2025 season a transition for Oregon softball would be a gross understatement.
The Ducks were moving from a power house west coast league in the defunct Pac-12 to a middling, at best, collections of teams that play softball in the Big Ten. However, it was also the end of eligibility for much of the veteran core of players that Lombardi had recruited in 2019. That same core had struggled through a disappointing 2019 (forced into early action following a spate of transfers) and a pandemic shortened 2020. Due to the extra year of eligibility granted for the 2020 non-season, much of the team stayed together through 2024.