Congratulations to Maddy Peterson on winning 2020 player of the year.

[TheSoftballZone]

Week #28 Player of the Week Mckenzi Schultz-Apps

Hi my name is Mckenzi Schultz-Apps. I'm currently 17 years old and I'm here to give you a little background about how my life has changed since I started playing softball. I started playing wreck ball in sixth grade. Merely out of boredom and curiosity. With time my father and I slowly realized that I had potential. I played on various travel teams over the course of 6 years; Khaos, Miami County Blaze, Cincy Doom Leiter, Bo Jackson blast, Cincy Doom gold Gregory and now Firecrackers. I truly believe I didn't get the hang of softball until the end of my sophomore year. The person I am I haven't always been the smartest or the most athletic. I always have to work for what I have. If I didn't study for a test i would most likely fail. I'm extremely proud to say I ended high school with an average 4.0 GPA for all four years. With that being said I had to work twice as hard at softball in order to get where I am now. Some people think starting softball early gives you an advantage. I honestly think it's the opposite. Starting late forced me to work harder, practice longer, and endure more injuries than most athletes. It has caused dozens of breakdowns and feelings of emotional disconnection with my Dad. But I would never trade the work, pain, tears, cuts, bruises, laughs or hours in the car for anything in the world. Everything comes together in the end, and the pieces to the puzzle are finally found and put together. I am now happily continuing my softball journey at Youngstown State University. All the pain-staking workouts led me to become stronger and enabled me to hit the ball further. All the disagreements have made me mentally stronger. On the outside, it looks just like a silly game to pass the time, but in reality, it's a gateway for thousands of memories and lessons that will last a lifetime.

 

[TheSoftballZone]

Week #29 Player of the Week (Kaylee Tatum)

Kaylee Tatum, is 13 years old, 2025 graduating class, and attends Lafayette Middle School in Lafayette, GA. Kaylee finished the school year with all As and Bs, Kaylee has played softball since she was 4 years old, starting out with tee ball of course and then progressing to Fastpitch, Kaylee plays Travel ball and for her Middle School Softball Team, she has made her middle school team all 3 years of middle school, in 7th grade the school was fortunate to have enough players for both a JV and Varsity team, Kaylee made the Varsity team. Kaylee Was a Catcher/2nd basemen/utility and then in late 2018 decided she wanted to be a pitcher, she taught herself to pitch by watching college softball and YouTube videos, Kaylee made the GA Heat 2024 team as a pitcher, with never having a professional lesson, after she made the team and mom and dad had enough of socks made into balls being thrown around the house, they agreed to sign her up for pitching lessons, she has now been in pitching lessons consistently for almost 2 years, she enrolled in lessons roughly 6 months after she first picked up a ball and said she was going to pitch, Covid 19 didn’t stop Kaylee, she used that time to continue lessons and attend The Packaged Deal online softball school, over the course of her softball career, Kaylee helped her local rec league (Whitfield County Recreation dept) win the championship title 2 years in a row and competed on the local All Star team, where her and her team won the district championship. Kaylee has played on Rawlings, Fear Fastpitch, GA Heat 2024, Southern Inferno 14u, and most recently for GA Fire 2024 Gooden, which has now transformed into Fury Fastpitch 2024- Gooden, during Kaylees short pitching tenture she has had several no hitters and a perfect game, Kaylee attended the USSSA World Series at SpaceCoast in Fl with her team GA Fire and the team came in 3rd place in 14u. Kaylee just attended and returned from the Softball Youth All American games in Kentucky, where her team came in runner up in her class and Kaylee won the skills competition for pitching velocity, with a speed on 56 MPH, Kaylee has reached 58 MPH as her current personal best, Kaylee is not your average height of a pitcher, she barely stands at 5’1, but she works hard to make up for the height she is lacking, to be just above 5 foot she is throwing the ball with speed, Kaylee also had a .615 batting average and .846 on base percentage for the week during the All American Games, Kaylee loves all things softball, when she isn’t on the field competing, she is on the field practicing, she is a great teammate and has a work ethic that is unbelievable, she aspires to continue to improve and to play college softball, she wants to study veterinarian medicine.

 

[TheSoftballZone]

Voting is over for 2020 player of the year and with it thesoftballzone wil end the Player of the Week program.