Home at last: Durham welcomes Carolina Blaze, new pro women’s softball team

When infielder Ana Gold played her final game at Duke — falling to Georgia in last year’s Durham regional softball final — she didn’t leave the field right away.

“I remember I laid on the field afterward, just bawling my eyes out,” Gold said, “because I was so sad to leave that field that I played so many games on. I was like, ‘I’m never going to play here again.’”

And yet, on Wednesday morning, Gold stood inside Durham Bulls Athletic Park as a professional softball player, where she was introduced as a founding member of the Carolina Blaze — North Carolina’s newest professional women’s sports team and one of six franchises in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League’s newly launched city-based model.

The Blaze’s official launch event brought together league executives like AUSL commissioner Kim Ng, local sports leaders, coaches and players to formally introduce the team ahead of its inaugural season. As the N&O reported last week, the franchise will play home games at Smith Family Stadium at Duke University, placing professional softball squarely back on the same campus where Gold starred as recently as 2025.

“For this to come around, it’s like a full-circle moment,” Gold said. “It’s really cool to see.”

Her teammate, Aleshia Ocasio, was unsure she’d get the chance to play professional softball. Not for a lack of talent — Ocasio was an All-American pitcher and national champion at Florida — but because she didn’t think she’d see a sustainable league in her lifetime.

“I got emotional just thinking about it,” Ocasio said Wednesday, “because there were moments where I was like, I’m never going to see pro softball mature… to be able to have young athletes be able to say that they play professional softball for a living and they’re happy doing it, and they love where they’re at.”

Ocasio signed on to play in the now-defunct National Pro Fastpitch league in 2018. She figured she’d be part of the change, the building of a league for the future.

That moment is now. And it’s in Durham.

“I think there’s so much excitement surrounding it, not just in North Carolina, but in surrounding states,” Ocasio said. “So this is. This is where it’s at, like the South with softball. So I think we’re going to see a lot of momentum in softball, and specifically North Carolina.”

‘This just couldn’t be a better moment’

When Carolina Blaze general manager Dana Sorenson recalls her professional softball career in the early 2000s, she remembers cramming in four players per hotel room, driving 15-passenger vans and being self-reliant for postgame grub.

“Now we have travel parties with strength coaches, trainers, marketing staff, event staff,” Sorenson said Wednesday. “Here and every event we went to last year… you see all the Blaze signs out there.”

On Wednesday, the DBAP videoboards displayed the Blaze logo. A lunch bar at the launch event was complete with Blaze napkins. Sorenson and Blaze head coach Kara Dill wore Blaze quarterzips, while players Gold and Ocasio sported a variety of retro-styled Blaze memorabilia.

This kind of treatment, from marketing to weight room access and offseason programming, was unheard of during Sorenson’s playing days.

But pro softball is not new to Durham.

Duke softball coach Marissa Young, speaking at the Blaze launch event Wednesday, made a point of shouting out the Durham Dragons — one of six founding franchises of Women’s Professional Fastpitch, a pro league launched in the southeast U.S. in 1997.

“To be here again, nearly two decades later, doing this all over now with the Carolina Blaze… this just couldn’t be a better moment for us,” Young said. “And I am very passionate about growing the sport of softball, especially here in the state of North Carolina.”

Women’s sports have grown at a meteoric pace over the past few years. Softball is no exception. The 2025 Women’s College World Series drawing record viewership — averaging 1.3 million viewers across the tournament, up 24% from the previous year.

On Wednesday, AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng pointed to those numbers, rising participation in baseball and softball, as well as the sport’s return to the LA Olympics in 2028, as signals of a growing national appetite for competitive softball opportunities at all levels.

Still, she laughs when business colleagues call softball “an emerging sport.”

“This thing has been here for a long time… it’s about providing opportunity for the women as athletes, as leaders, as inspiration [and] aspiration — to really give them the platform,” Ng said. “Can you imagine if Jennie Finch or Cat Osterman had the platform and the stage that Derek Jeter had 20 years ago?”

Ng stared out at the DBAP field as she contemplated the theoretical she’d just posed. Finch and Osterman are icons, of course, but had they been given all this? Ng let her mind wander a bit more before returning to the question.

“But here we are,” she continued. “We’re starting. We’re gonna get it and we’re gonna grow it really quickly.”

‘Because Durham is the best’

Until now, AUSL operated under a touring model, bringing games to cities across the country in barnstorming fashion. The launch in Durham — alongside launches of its competing teams in Chicago, Portland, Oklahoma City, Texas and Utah — marks a major step in the league’s evolution. While the host city plan was put in place two years ago, AUSL cofounder Jon Patricof said, the organization’s relationship with the Carolinas goes back even further.

AUSL’s 2025 All-Star Cup featured games in Holly Springs, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina. Even before that, Patricof said league organizers had a “great relationship” with Little League Softball, which hosts its World Series in Greenville.

“Holly Springs was incredible. I mean, we had incredible crowds, sold out,” Patricof said. “But what goes even deeper is really the nature of this community.”

After speeches from Ng, Durham Sports Commission Executive Director Marcus Manning, Durham Bulls interim General Manager Chrystal Rowe and Young kicked off the launch event, an audience member posted a simple question, “Why Durham?”

Mayor Leonardo Williams didn’t hesitate. Standing up from his seat in the front row, he quipped, “Because Durham is the best!” He shrugged to punctuate his answer, drawing some chuckles from the crowd.

But beyond the humor, Manning explained, he believes Durham is a place where professional softball can grow roots.

Last week, on a recent flight to Washington, the Durham Sports Commission leader found himself imagining the moments the Blaze could create: a fifth grader in Little League asking Gold for fielding tips, a family walking downtown in Blaze gear, a college sophomore at N.C. Central picking the brain of Sorensen.

“Because of that collective effort, we’re here and we can create those types of moments in Durham,” Manning said Wednesday.

Manning acknowledged the many local contributors who helped bring the Blaze to Durham. He thanked Duke assistant director of game operations Chad Bernstein, as well as Ben Greer and Margaret Pentrak of Discover Durham, for their help in the bidding effort. He thanked Coastal Plain League Commissioner Chip Allen and former Bulls GM Mike Birling for offering their knowledge. He thanked Duke AD Nina King, Young, and Duke Deputy Director of Athletics Bob Weisman for serving as strategic partners in Durham.

And that’s just a few of the names.

Ng said selecting the league’s six markets was a challenge, but Durham’s strong community, robust sports culture, and the area’s investment in women’s athletics made it a “great choice.” She also announced that the Blaze will host a three-game series at the DBAP June 25–27, allowing the AUSL to showcase professional softball to a 10,000-seat crowd.

For Durham, the Blaze’s arrival adds to a growing women’s sports presence in the Triangle. Gold, the former Duke standout, said she hopes the impact will extend beyond game days.

“I think it’ll help the surrounding community,” Gold said, “just North Carolina as a whole, with softball, get very motivated and kind of fight for softball. And I think more girls will be interested in playing softball and hopefully getting better and getting to the next level.”

Now there is a next level — and it feels more stable. And, for Gold, it feels like home.

This story was originally published January 22, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Home at last: Durham welcomes Carolina Blaze, new pro women’s softball team."