Megan Grant hit the 182nd home run of UCLA's season on Saturday and, with one swing against Nebraska in the Big Ten championship game, set the NCAA record for home runs in a season by a player.
The UCLA senior's 38th home run of the 2026 season broke a 31-year-old mark held by Lauren Espinoza of Arizona since 1995. It also came in the middle of a postseason surge that has kept UCLA's power numbers climbing almost every time the Bruins took the field.
That chase had been building for weeks. Oklahoma set the NCAA single-season team home run record at 162 on April 24, when Kendall Wells homered against Georgia. UCLA was at 158 on the same day, and the two programs spent the rest of the spring trading blows.
UCLA hit four home runs against Oregon in the final game of the regular season and pulled even with Oklahoma at 173. The Bruins added four more against Penn State in their opening game of the Big Ten Softball Tournament, moved ahead 177-174, and then out-homered Oklahoma 9-1 in conference tournament action last week. By Saturday, UCLA had reached 182 as Grant sent her shot out against Nebraska.
Grant's record matters because it was not just a personal milestone. It landed inside a team race that turned the NCAA home run chase into a two-program sprint, with UCLA and Oklahoma pushing each other deep into the postseason. UCLA's surge has been relentless, and Grant has been at the center of it from the start.
The previous individual mark lasted longer than Grant has been alive. Espinoza's record had stood since 1995, untouched for 31 years until Grant tied her season to UCLA's rise and broke it in the championship round. That gives Saturday's homer a place in NCAA history as both a single-player achievement and the latest swing in a season-long power race that changed the record books twice.
What comes next is the postseason stage where UCLA can keep adding to its total, but Grant has already done the part that mattered most. The senior from UCLA finished the regular-season chase and the tournament push by setting a record that had survived for a generation.
