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They found Ashley Neufeld's body pressed against the back window of the Jeep Cherokee, one of her best friends dead beside her, the other a few feet away in the front seat.

It looked as though she was locked in a desperate struggle to survive, her mother said Wednesday. But even a stellar athlete couldn't generate enough force to push open the back window of the Jeep as it slipped deeper into a North Dakota pond.

Ms. Neufeld, a 21-year-old from Brandon, Man., was one of three members of the Dickinson State University softball team to die in a tragic, puzzling accident in the prairie countryside this week. Local police say it appears the three young women were driving off-road, planning on stopping to gaze at the stars, when they drove into a deep pond on a farmer's field.

The vehicle quickly filled with water, police said. Ms. Neufeld's close friend Kyrstin Gemar, 22, died with her in the cargo area at the back of the Jeep. Their friend Afton Williamson, 20, died halfway between the front and second row of seats. Ms. Neufeld's dog, Easton, a black and white mop of fur, also died in the accident. The vehicle, a 1997 model, was submerged in the pond when police found it.

The young women likely didn't see the pond, Dickinson Police Lieutenant Rod Banyai said Wednesday. They had only a few seconds to react, and in those precious moments Ms. Neufeld called her roommate – a scratchy, hysterical call that said only there was water and danger, her mother recounted Wednesday.

“I got a call on [Monday] about 1:30 in the morning from Ashley's roommate,” Bev Neufeld said. “Her roommate asked me if Ashley had given me a call, or if I had heard from her. I said, ‘No, what's wrong?'

“She said she'd got a phone call from Ashley saying she needed help, they were in trouble, could [the roommate] come and help. The cell communication was very broken, and there was scant information saying ‘water' and ‘a lake' and things like that. I immediately tried to call her and it went directly to voice message. I continued to text her but got no response.”

Her roommate called police, but they had very little to act on. It was common for members of the softball team to take rides in the country to look at the stars, but they never visited the same place twice.

Police used the last cellphone calls to triangulate the approximate area where the girls had gone stargazing on Sunday night. A combined ground and air search found their bodies on Tuesday.

“From what we gather, Ashley and one of the other girls were in the back cargo area, so they were assuming that they were trying to kick the back window out but they weren't successful,” her mother said.

“The pressure against the windows … they're very strong girls, there must have been no way they could kick out the windows.”

On Wednesday, the dead women's teammates and parents gathered at the site where they perished. Bev Neufeld described it as a four-metre-deep dammed pond for livestock watering, with some long grass at its edge.

“It's basically a hole in the ground that holds water,” she said. “If you were driving in the dark you could be in the middle of it without even realizing. That's what happened. Then they realized, and the panicked phone call.”

Police probe softball players' deaths

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Each of their coaches and teammates stood at the side of the pond on Wednesday and threw in a rose in memory of the girls. Then Ms. Neufeld's mother stepped forward, holding one of three softballs intended to serve as a tribute to the deceased. She pulled a pen from her pocket and wrote, “We love you three forever and always” on the ball, and heaved it into the water.

The women's head softball coach, Kristen Fleury, said it was an emotional moment.

“We lost three of our sisters,” Ms. Fleury said. “We were hoping we'd find them on the side of a road with a dead cellphone waiting for a ride, but it wasn't to be.”

Ms. Neufeld, a talented outfielder, was part of a team that went to three straight softball national championships, finishing eighth, fifth and third in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics small-college competition. She attended the school of 2,700 students on a partial scholarship, and was studying for a degree in psychology. She planned to work with mentally challenged young people once she graduated, her mother said.

“Her main focus stemmed from the type of person she is,” her mother said. “She was just such an unselfish person and she had the biggest heart.”