Diamond sports and numbers coalesce like no other. 

With the wealth of data, coaches, fans and journalists alike have incredible amounts of information and technology about players. Oregon softball even has a machine that simulates their next opposing pitchers’ deliveries. The numbers, the data and the technology tell the story: how to evaluate a player, where they should bat and so on.  

Then, there are catchers, one position where sometimes, the numbers can’t tell the story. 

Coaches can look at a player’s offensive output, and track their ability to throw out runners, but in other areas of the game — pitch framing, game managing and immeasurable confidence — catchers’ value remains hard to gauge. 

Emma Cox is becoming one of those catchers for the Oregon softball team. 

“I thought she did a really nice job,” Oregon head coach Melyssa Lombardi said of Cox after she was the first of three Ducks in a row to receive Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors. “I love the way she swung the bat. I think she does a really great job working with our pitchers, and just what she does behind the plate.” 

The numbers back up Cox’s performance too — through her first 17 collegiate games, Cox tallied a .354 batting average, four homers and threw out a pair of runners. 

“I would say I wasn’t expecting to do as well as I did,” Cox said after the first weekend of the season. “But I got to this place where I was like, ‘you know, good or bad, we’re not going to worry about the outcome’. I’m going to focus on what I can control, and whatever happens, happens.”

But, a catcher’s true value sometimes comes in their relationship with their pitchers — something Cox has excelled at in her early career. 

“I love our pitchers a lot,” Cox said. “They are grinders and they want to win. So, I felt like it was super easy with me coming in because they made me feel so comfortable and  I have a great relationship with all of them.” 

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Cox, not with the backstop missing almost the entirety of the Oregon Classic after suffering an injury on a deflected foul ball in the first game. Still, with a return to play likely, and Cox emerging as a dependable force behind the dish and at the plate, the sky’s the limit for the Thornton, Colorado native. 

After a combined five seasons of All-Conference-level play from both Terra McGowan and Emma Kauf, Lombardi entered the season without certainty of what the Ducks’ future behind the plate would look like. Then, Cox entered the scene. 

But adding Cox to a lauded freshman group has certainly added some clarity to the team’s plans behind the plate in 2025.

“It’s so exciting to see what they are doing,” associate head coach Sam Marder said of the freshman class. “They are taking on a huge load, and a lot of times as freshmen, what people are now starting to expect of them is incredible… I don’t know if people are recognizing enough how special what this freshman class is doing.”