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On Thursday Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle announced that The University of Minnesota has hired Gretta Melsted as their new softball coach. Melsted comes to Minnesota from Division II Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where she had been the head coach for the past 20 seasons. In her time with the Vikings, Melsted led Augustana to 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, the 2019 NCAA Division II National Championship and five consecutive NSIC regular season titles from 2021-25 and most recently helped the Vikings win the 2026 NSIC Tournament.
Melsted is an Albert Lea native who played college softball for Carleton where she still holds the school record for runs scored in a season. She would go on to be an assistant coach for both Robbinsdale Cooper and Armstrong high school and Carleton before being hired as the head coach at Culver-Stockton University. She stayed their for three seasons before taking over the Augustana program.
At Augustana, Melsted led the Vikings to an 813-313 overall record, including seven seasons with 50-plus wins, highlighted by a program-best 61-win season in 2019. She was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame in December 2024. Melsted led Augustana to the 2019 NCAA Division II National Championship after guiding the Vikings to a 10-2 record in the NCAA postseason. Augustana defeated No. 2 Winona State in regionals and No. 1 Central Oklahoma in super regionals, both on the road, before earning a pair of 6-4 wins against Texas A&M-Kingsville in the championship series. Melsted’s teams have consistently been among the best offensively. In 2023, Augustana ranked second nationally with a .607 slugging percentage and fifth with a .356 batting average. In 2022, the Vikings ranked third nationally in batting average, second in home runs per game and fourth in runs per game.
Gretta is a proven winner and one of the most respected coaches in college softball,” said Coyle. “She is a Hall of Fame coach and has built and sustained a championship program, developed student-athletes at an elite level and has a strong understanding of softball in this region. Her teams have consistently competed for championships, and I am excited to welcome Gretta, her husband Dan and sons Matthew and Jacob to the University of Minnesota.”
I am incredibly honored and excited to be named the head softball coach at the University of Minnesota,” said Melsted. “This is a program with tremendous tradition, passionate alumni and a proud history of competing at the highest level. I would like to thank President Rebecca Cunningham, Director of Athletics Mark Coyle, sport administrator Joi Thomas and the search committee for trusting me with this opportunity. As someone who grew up in Minnesota, I know how special this place is, and I cannot wait to get to work with our student-athletes and build on the legacy of Gopher softball.”
Melstad will need to step in immediately to try and turn around a Gopher program that has been floundering the past few seasons under former head coach Piper Ritter. Melstad will need to try and recruit nationally in a hurry to find the talent needed to get the Gopher program back in the top half of the conference. She is a very good coach, but whether or not she can recruit on a national level and not just a regional one will be something to watch over the next few seasons.
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