From high school MVP to the big leagues, Mary Grace O’Neill is playing for WPBL Boston.
Mary Grace O’Neill, from Pleasantville, New York, will play center field for Boston in the Women’s Professional Baseball League’s inaugural season. O’Neill attended Pleasantville High School and played softball while there. She played Division I softball at both Fordham University and Lafayette College.
At Pleasantville High School, along with softball, O’Neill played basketball and soccer. She was a four-time All-League and two-time All-Section player. O’Neill was also a Westchester/Putnam All-Star honorable mention in her sophomore year. During her senior year, she was named captain of the softball team, named the league’s Most Valuable Player, and was Pleasantville’s Female Athlete of the Year.
O’Neill attended Fordham University during her freshman and sophomore years, which were in 2022 and 2023. She got four starts out of the 19 games played her freshman year. O’Neill was named to the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll and an Easton/NFCA All-America Scholar-Athlete. During her sophomore year, she made 15 starts out of the 30 games she played. She ended the season batting .276. O’Neill was again named to the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll.
In 2024, O’Neill transferred to Lafayette College and played there her junior and senior years. During her junior year, she made all 42 starts. She finished the season batting .274. O’Neill had 37 hits, which was the most on the team. She also had 24 stolen bases, which was a team record.
In her senior year, she started in all 38 games that season and had her best season yet. She had a batting average of .423, had 52 doubles, and had a slugging percentage of .545. O’Neill led the team in all of those statistics as well as in triples, hits, and on-base percentage. She finished her college career with the third-highest batting average in the school’s history.
The WPBL starts its inaugural season on Aug. 1. Boston and O’Neill will play their first game on Aug. 2 against San Francisco.