TEMPE – Less than a month ago, Sun Devil Softball’s Kenzie Brown was presented with an AUSL ‘Golden Ticket,’ signaling the Lake City, Ill., native had been drafted into the league. The only question remaining was which team selected the Big 12 Conference’s leader in strikeouts.
The answer was revealed at 4:40 p.m. MST on Monday, May 4, when the Portland Cascade used its third-round pick on Brown. Brown was the third of four picks by the organization during the hour-long draft broadcasted in front of a nation-wide audience on ESPN2. She will join UCLA’s Megan Grant, Arizona’s Sydney Stewart and Florida’s Kenleigh Cahalan on the league’s newest expansion team.
Brown becomes Arizona State softball’s first selection into a professional softball league since Yannira Acuña was the 10th of 14 athletes drafted into Athletes Unlimited – a women’s professional sports organization that laid the foundation for today’s AUSL – on Monday, May 9, 2023.
“I just feel really lucky to be drafted. My team is stacked, so I’m just looking forward to playing with everyone, “Brown said. “I think we have a really amazing pitching staff. I’m excited to see how my pitches work at the next level and what I need to improve on. I’m always looking to get better, so I’m excited to see how I can get better at the next level, especially with all the talented pitchers on my team.
“I think it just shows how ASU has given me all the tools my teammates and I needed to be successful at this level. Tonight goes to show how everyone's hard work has paid off.”
Over the course of her Sun Devil career, Brown has been a three-time Big 12 Pitcher of the Week, a consensus All-American, All-Big 12 First Team selection and a CSC Academic All-District honoree. She’s posted over 20 career double-digit strikeout performances, including a 13-strikeouting outing against Oklahoma in Tempe on Opening Night of the 2026 regular season.
“I think she’s going to transition beautifully to the pro level," said Sun Devil Softball head coach Megan Bartlett. "The reality is to be really dominate at the professional level in our sport; you have to have all the tricks. You have to be able to go up, go down, east west, off-speed pitch. Kenzie has a plus rise ball, a good drop ball, two off-speed pitches, then - of course - she can locate east and west.
So, the reality is whatever the task is and however she needs to miss a barrel, she has a pitch that will find a way to do that. I’m really excited to watch her at the next level, honestly.”
After the AUSL was made up of four teams – the Blaze, Bandits, Volts and Talons – during the league’s inaugural season in 2025, the Oklahoma City Spark, which was founded in 2022 and launched in 2023, joined the AUSL for the 2026 season – after competing in the Women’s Professional Fastpitch (WPF) – in November 2025.
Two months later, Portland was revealed as the host city for the league’s latest expansion team: the Cascade. The addition of the Cascade brought the league to six teams.
“Portland has shown up and supported women’s sports on a large scale. Just to be quite simple, showing up. It’s in their culture. Their fiber,” said AUSL Commission Kim Ng at the time.
The Portland Cascade will play home games at Hillsboro Ballpark, formerly Ron Tonkin Field.
UP NEXT
Brown and her teammates will now travel to Oklahoma City, Okla., where the sixth-seeded Arizona State Sun Devils (38-16) will take on the third-seeded Arizona Wildcats (35-15) in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Softball Tournament presented by Allstate at 5:30 p.m. MST on Thursday, May 7.
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