Kayla Bowen joined the UC Riverside softball coaching staff in 2025, bringing an accomplished playing and coaching background to the Highlanders. She will work primarily with the team’s infielders and hitters.
Before arriving in Riverside, Bowen spent the 2024 season as an assistant coach at the Colorado School of Mines, where she assisted at Mines with defensive work, supporting the pitching staff, game planning and film review, administrative duties, and equipment and apparel management.
A standout first baseman during her five-year collegiate career at New Mexico State, Bowen was a three-time All-WAC selection, earning First Team All-Conference and All-Defensive Team honors in 2023. That same season, she was recognized as an NFCA Third Team All-Pacific Region honoree—becoming just the 20th player in program history to earn All-Region distinction.
Bowen started 207 of her 217 career games for the Aggies, including every contest over her final two seasons. A career .325 hitter, she tallied 205 hits, 45 doubles, 44 home runs, and 149 RBI, finishing with a .616 slugging percentage. In 2023, she turned in the best season of her career, hitting .387/.453/.817 with 14 doubles, 15 home runs, 37 RBI, 55 hits, and 42 runs scored.
Known for her reliability both at the plate and in the field, Bowen finished her career ranked fifth all-time at New Mexico State in home runs and third in both doubles and single-season slugging percentage. Bowen also logged time in the circle in 2022, making 16 relief appearances that season. Defensively, she was an anchor at first base, recording a .996 fielding percentage in 2023 with just one error in 247 chances.
A native of Fresno, California, Bowen earned her bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology and completed a master’s degree in Communication Studies at New Mexico State.
