Megan Grant extended her single-season record with her 40th home run Sunday night, driving an opposite-field grand slam in the top of the fifth as UCLA beat South Carolina 15-1 in the NCAA regional final.
The blast — Grant’s seventh career grand slam — came with the bases loaded and stretched a game that was already lopsided. She finished the night with six runs batted in after adding a two-run single an inning later, and UCLA tacked on four more homers in the victory. Rylee Simp, Kaniya Bragg and Soo-Jin Berry all homered for the Bruins on Sunday.
Grant’s grand slam broke the single-game highlight reel and pushed her season total to 40 home runs. That figure builds on another milestone: one week earlier, during the Big Ten championship game against Nebraska, Grant set the Division I single-season home run record at 38 before raising it again this weekend. She is now one home run shy of matching UCLA’s career record of 90 held by Stacey Nuveman.
The timeline of the weekend was sharp and fast. On Saturday, Grant hit her 39th home run against South Carolina while teammate Kiki Rice watched from the stands. By Sunday, the record run continued — although some reports described the 40th as a walk-off grand slam, a characterization circulating after the game that conflicts with the play-by-play description of an opposite-field slam in the top of the fifth.
There is another, quieter storyline beneath the stats: Grant split time this year between softball and basketball. She appeared in 14 games for UCLA’s basketball team between November and February, commuting a practice schedule that put basketball on Tuesdays and Thursdays and softball on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The cross-sport workload has become part of how people explain her poise under pressure; teammates and coaches say that preparation shows up in big moments.
UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez praised Grant’s ability to rise to the occasion and noted how the team trusted her to handle a bases-loaded pitch. Inouye-Perez said Grant came to UCLA to break and set records and that she was proud Grant got a pitch to hit with the bases full. Teammate Kiki Rice pointed to Grant’s professionalism during the basketball stint — that she arrived early, stayed late and competed every day — and said that demeanor explains why Grant is the best softball player in the country and why she brings energy to every practice and game.
Grant herself called the achievement "incredible" and said she felt blessed to reach 40. She tried to keep her approach simple, she said, knowing there was a runner on third and that any elevated ball had to be put in the air; this time it cleared the fence. She added that being mentioned alongside Stacey Nuveman is an honor, and she said she’s grateful for the opportunity to perform on a national stage.
The result also matters to UCLA’s postseason path. With the regional clinched, the Bruins will face the University of Central Florida in next week’s NCAA super regional. Grant’s bat — and the one remaining homer she needs to tie Nuveman’s career mark — will be headline storylines when the super regional begins.
Beyond the record books, Sunday’s game made one thing clear: Grant’s season has the shape of an athlete who has lived two sports at once and still finished the year rewriting the softball record book. She heads into the super regional a single long ball from UCLA history, and the team that draws her next will have to live with that reality every time she steps to the plate.
