After sweeping Colorado State in the final series of the 2025 season, the Nevada Softball team has clinched the Mountain West regular season title. The Wolf Pack will be the No. 1 seed in the 2025 conference tournament, and because they clinched the conference, they’re also expected to host the conference tournament in 2026.
However, one big and bright hurdle must be passed before that can be a reality. Christina M. Hixson Park, home of Nevada Softball, doesn’t have field lights, which is one of two home sites at Nevada without lights (the other being the men’s and women’s tennis teams). The team is unable to host any night games, and one of the key requirements to hosting a conference tournament is having lights.
Hixson Park has a lot of work to do, for that matter. The team doesn’t have an actual locker room; instead, it uses shipping containers on the side of the field. Those haven’t exactly been secure, either. In 2022, Nevada Sports Net reported that over $15,000-$20,000 worth of equipment was stolen from those containers.
There are also no actual bathrooms at the stadium. Fans and players must use portable toilets located around the venue.
The stadium also needs more seating. Right now, Hixson Park only has 168 permanent seats behind home plate. The rest of the area is grass seating where fans can bring lawn chairs, and the official capacity listed on the Nevada Athletics website is 1,000.
Athletic Director Stephanie Rempe acknowledged these issues before Nevada’s series against CSU was complete. She mentioned that they’ve invested $2.8 million into the complex, which mainly covered a new playing surface. But with all the issues listed above, there’s more work to do.
“We obviously need more seats and we need a locker room,” Rempe said. “We need covered cages, but we also need the lights.”
For a team that just won 40 games for the second consecutive year, it’s astonishing to see what the softball team has to endure. And while that $2.8 million helped, it was university-funded. For the rest of the renovations, including lights, the team will rely on the community and private donors. The price for the lights alone will be a hefty one.
“We’ve run numbers, and it’s going to cost about a million dollars to add lights to softball,” Rempe said. “We have to figure out a way to do that, so that’s something that is coming on the horizon.”
The efforts have already begun. Shortly after the Wolf Pack clinched the conference, Nevada Athletics emailed the community asking for donations to help fund the lights project. While it’s unclear if all $1 million will have to come from public and private supporters, Nevada will have the rest of 2025 to raise as much as possible for installing lights before the 2026 season begins.
