Texas A&M slugger Mya Perez builds on breakout 2025

Mya Perez was angry and frustrated after Texas A&M’s softball season came to a shocking end last May at David Diamond. Perez had just set the school’s single-season record for runs batted in, and much was expected from the top-seeded Aggies.

No experts predicted that the Aggies would be eliminated in their own regional. Perez shed a few tears at the realization that she would no longer play with the seniors who helped guide her during a difficult freshman season in 2024 and a breakout campaign in 2025. 

Once the tears were wiped away, though, Perez realized it was time for her to lead. A day after the loss, she turned her focus to her junior season. 

“I would say I’ve been most excited about just how I reacted as a player to the failure that happened last year, kind of just how I carry myself every day living life where my feet are,” the junior slugger says. “Just how I carry myself as an athlete, teammate and a person overall with a lot of passion, just like a lot of hard work I dedicated to this sport and in school overall. I feel like my whole mindset has changed.”

Home run summer

Perez couldn’t have scripted the somewhat storybook summer and fall that awaited. The 5-foot-8 slugger from Corona, Calif., is the first in her family to attend college. So she was especially proud to be named an Academic All-American to go with her All-SEC and All-American Second Team honors in 2025.

She enters the 2026 season as a Preseason All-American and on the USA Softball Player of the Year watch list. Perez, who is majoring in Sports Management, improved her Spanish while representing the Mexican National Softball Team over the summer.

She excelled during a tournament in Colombia and made new friends while adding to her modest Spanish vocabulary. Perez helped teach her Team Mexico teammates English. They reciprocated by teaching her Spanish.

Perez, a diehard Dodgers fan, even met several former MLB All-Stars. She joined one of her childhood heroes – former MLB All-Star Adrian Gonzalez –  and top 2026 MLB Draft prospect Grady Emerson to win the MLB Home Run Derby X in October in Salt Lake City, Utah.

More from Our Esquina

A conversation with Texas A&M’s Mya Perez

Texas A&M’s Mya Perez pays tribute with classic ‘Volver, Volver’

Persy Llamas makes name for herself at Ole Miss

In the MLB Home Run Derby X finals, she faced the Yankees’ squad represented by Todd Frazier, Nick Swisher and University of Oklahoma softball legend Jocelyn Alo, arguably the most feared slugger in NCAA Softball history.

Perez put on a show in front of Alo in the final. She hit 16 home runs, four more than Alo, to help the Dodgers edge the Yankees 72-71 in the championship. 

“It was just super fun,” Perez said of her performance at the MLB Home Run Derby X. “Just awesome to put women’s sports out there.”

Representing proudly

Perez represents more than women’s sports. She is a proud Mexican American who played Vicente Fernandez’s “Volver, Volver” as a walk-up song last year. She chose that song to represent her Mexican roots.

Her diverse group of teammates and fans at Davis Diamond loved hearing “Volver, Volver,” an iconic ranchera. Because NCAA Regionals are technically supposed to be treated as neutral sites, the Aggies didn’t use their regular walk-up songs on the first day of the 2025 NCAA Softball Regional.

After some lobbying by teammates, “Volver, Volver” was played for Perez again on the second day of the Regional.

Perez hit .424 with 16 home runs last season to finish with the third best single-season batting average in school history. Her 73 RBIs broke the single-season school record that stood for 43 years.

Perez’s .804 slugging percentage was the sixth best in school history. More importantly to her, she excelled in the classroom.

“Honestly, I thought I was the most proud of that (Academic All-America honor) overall,” she said. “I’m not the smartest, I would say. School hasn’t always come easy, especially for me in college, super hard. Seeing that was truly an accomplishment. All the 8 a.m. classes and all the study halls paid off.”

Perez’s work in the batting cages and the diamond between her freshman and sophomore seasons also paid off. It’s an understatement to say Perez had a breakout sophomore season while starting at first base or as the designated hitter. She had only one home run and nine RBIs over 31 games as a freshman. 

“Student of the game’

“From her freshman year to her sophomore (year) she just became more comfortable in her skin and her approach,” Texas A&M coach Trisha Ford said. “Now she has to learn this fall that everybody’s focused on Mya Perez, right?

“When we face teams, she’s the one (teams will say) ‘she can’t beat us,’ right? So learning how to be that player, what her at-bats look like, not trying to do too much. So I think that’s what she really worked on this fall. Her approach, her mindset is so right on.”

Ford proudly notes that Perez is constantly sending text messages to Texas A&M associate head coach Jeff Harger after watching game film. Perez texts Harger to tell him what she sees and is feeling. 

“She’s just a student (of the game). She’s a professional,” Ford says of Perez. “Even going through the MLB home run derby that she went through this fall, like (from) talking to those guys she just continues to get better and better and just smarter. 

“So I just think you just see her maturing. I’m very happy that she’s here. I’m happy that I don’t have to face her.”

Heading into their season opener this week, the Aggies are ranked No. 14 in Softball America’s Top 25 preseason poll and No. 11 on ESPN’s D1 Softball poll. Perez’s top goal remains the same as it was last year before Liberty eliminated the Aggies.

“The only thing on my mind is to get to the (College) World Series,” she says. “We have a good group of girls. They’re all great. We’ve been working really hard just focusing on the little things, just being consistent. Overall, I think we’re going to look pretty good and we’re going to have a good season.”