Kent State has made four appearances in the NCAA Division I Softball Championship, advancing to the Women's College World Series in 1990.

Following the passage of Title IX in 1972, Kent State University began to introduce additional women's intercollegiate sports at the varsity level.

The softball team played the 1975 season as a club team and began varsity competition in 1976 as a member of the Ohio Association of Intercollegiate Sports for Women (OAISW), where they would play until the Mid-American Conference added softball as a sponsored sport in 1982, with competition beginning in 1983.

Under Lilley, Kent State won their first MAC softball championship in 1990, when the team posted a 20–4 conference record and 43–9 overall mark.

The 1990 team went 3–0 in the regional round of the NCAA Tournament, where they defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes twice and the Oregon Ducks to advance to the Women's College World Series.

At the WCWS, Kent State fell to both UCLA and UNLV to earn a national 7th-place finish.

[8][9] Kent State is a regular participant in the Mid-American Conference softball tournament, which was first held in 1982, but was discontinued after 1986 and resumed in 1996.

[6] The Golden Flashes have made four appearances in the NCAA Division I Softball Championship as of 2017, the most recent being in 2017.

Kent State has one appearance in the Women's College World Series and an overall record of 7–8 in the tournament.

It is located along Summit Street adjacent to the southwest corner of Dix Stadium on the eastern edge of the Kent State University campus.

The facility features bleacher seating for 500 fans, dugouts, bullpens, a press box, and batting cages.

The field was built adjacent to Dix Stadium to allow use of the locker rooms by players and the restroom facilities by fans.

When the program was first established in 1975, they played at what was known as University Field in the area north of the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center.

This area was used for construction of the adjacent MACC Annex beginning in 1977, so from 1977 through 1981, the team played off campus at Fred Fuller Park in Kent.

The site of the field is now part of the parking lot for the adjacent Student Recreation and Wellness Center, which opened in 1999.

For the 1998 season, the team used one of the softball fields at the nearby Allerton Sports Complex while the Diamond at Dix was under construction.

Kent State has played both the Vikings and Penguins regularly since the Flashes' first varsity season in 1976.

The Flashes and Penguins have met 65 times through 2018, with Kent State leading the series 51–14 after sweeping a doubleheader in Youngstown.

The Penguins and Flashes have met once in the NCAA Tournament, with Kent State winning 8–0 in 2008 at Ann Arbor, Michigan.