At the end of Cat Osterman‘s championship-winning 2010 season with National Pro Fastpitch, a women’s professional softball league that folded, she left something for Chris Almendarez, who was working closely with the team when Dell Diamond hosted NPF games.
Almendarez, now the president of the Round Rock Express, found a signed softball from Osterman as a “thank you.”
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“He (Chris) was with us for everything … I just saw the work that went into it and we didn’t have a lot of people putting that much work into our series and pro softball at that point,” Osterman said Tuesday at an Athlete Unlimited Softball League launch event.
Texas Alum left to right Bella Dayton, Cat Osterman, Mia Scott, Mary Iakopo.
Jade Hewitt/AUSL
Osterman and Almendarez talked throughout the season about how cool it would be to bring a pro softball team to their native state, Texas. Sixteen years later, it was announced that instead of touring the country, the AUSL will have the Texas Volts play their home games out of Dell Diamond and that Osterman would continue her role as general manager.
“It’s a dream come true,” Osterman said. “Little girls now get to own a team and say they want to be a Volt, a part of the Cascade or Talons (other AUSL teams) and that’s something we never had in other iterations of pro softball.”
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While it was a dream come true for Osterman, other Volts players, who did not think it was possible, finally get to call Texas their home for the season.
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Outfielder Amanda Lorenz recalled that she had a bunch of dreams, including to play for Team USA and to play in the Women’s College World Series. An All-American who played for Florida, she holds gold medals from World Games and helped the Gators make three straight trips to Oklahoma City for the WCWS.
Lorenz said playing softball deep into her late 20s with AUSL was a dream that didn’t exist because for a long time, the highest level that could be achieved was with Team USA, an 18-player roster. Becoming a Volt is a realized dream after playing for so long and watching softball grow in popularity, she said.
“I just of think my younger self and my dreams of playing softball for as long as possible,” Lorenz said. “If you can see her, you can be her.”
Former Texas softball star Mia Scott also helped ring in the new team Tuesday. The third basemen initially didn’t want to turn pro, but had a change of heart after the draft. Osterman kept her in mind in case a Volt got hurt, which ended up happening.
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Members of the Texas Volts pose at a launch event held at Inn Cahoots Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2025 in Austin. (L:R Ricci Woodard, Amanda Laurenz, Cat Osterman, Mia Scott).
Provided by the AUSL
So when Osterman gave Scott the call, the former Longhorn got a hero’s welcome in front of a crowd of 6,500 on the Saturday of a four-game series.
“Even though I don’t live here any more, Austin is home and I’m just super excited to get back and play in front of a familiar crowd,” Scott said.
“She joined us and I think she realized what she’s capable of,” Osterman said. “Hopefully she does this for a couple years to come so we can continue to feed off that Texas connection.”
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The AUSL decided to change from a touring model to placing teams in cities because of how successful the stops were, especially last summer at Dell Diamond. Osterman said if there was any chance to have a pro team play in Texas, a stop in Round Rock was going to easily convince AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng.
“Austin/Round Rock is proof of the concept that people will pack out a large venue to watch pro softball,” Ng said. “We no longer have to envision what it could look like, we now know what it will look like.”
The Volts open their season June 9 against the Oklahoma City Spark, a new team for the AUSL. The home opener at Dell Diamond is June 18.
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