“I started playing [softball] when I was 8. It was just T-ball at first but then I got more into travel. When I was 12, that is when it started getting really competitive, and that is when I started focusing on going to school for [softball]. Sophomore year I started to look at schools based on their programs and stuff. We started going to college tournaments and college campuses. In the summer, you would go to tournaments and that is where the coaches would be. They would email you saying something like, ‘Hey, we are interested in you and would like you to come to our camp.’ You would just go to camps that are in the summer, or fall.

The coach from Cleary [University] was actually watching someone else on my team. That dad of the girl he was watching told him to go look at the right fielder and right when he said that, I dove for a ball. [The coach] watched me for the rest of the game. Then he talked to me after the game and said he saw me dive for the ball and that he would watch my other games. I’m always like really nervous when college coaches are watching, but I wasn’t really and played kinda well. [The coach] told me that they would love for me to come for an official visit. They don’t usually offer that right away, but the school is super small. I went there like a month later and he had the paperwork all filled out about like how much my scholarship was. Then I just visited the whole school and everything.

I’ll play summer ball with my travel team and then I go to school two weeks before all the other undergrads come in. We start workouts right away and move in right away. We don’t start games until later but we will just workout and practice. [Cleary softball] won nationals last year so it’s a good program and I’m excited for it.”