Kaitlyn Ball named Athlete of the Week 5/8/18
This week’s Sermon Service and Electric Athlete of the Week was supposed to only pitch 3 innings May 2nd, so he could get his other pitchers some work, but his starter found a groove and pitched a complete game.
Shelley Russet’s Kaitlyn Ball went out and threw seven innings and struck out 13 Teton Redskins in 9 to 5 victory.
The next day, she went out on the mound for senior day, struck out 9 more batters, and threw another complete game.
Coach Travis Perez tells Sportsline in the three years he has been a coach for Shelley, she has already been a team player.
“She has outstanding leadership characteristics, Kaitlyn’s the type of girl that, she’s early to practice, she’s a self starter, she wants everybody, you know as soon as it’s time for practice, she gets our warm ups started and going, she’s one of the last ones to leave,” says Perez, “Always making sure the field is taken care of after practice, raking around the field. Staying late after practice. If I ask her to do play somewhere other than pitcher, she’s taking fly balls, she’s taking grounders, she’s doing sliding practice.”
Kaitlyn has played at the Varsity level all four years of high school.
In the time she played at Shelley, Ball has noticed her growth and learned some lessons along the way.
“Yeah, it’s been crazy, I came in as a scared freshman and now I’m the one scaring the people just kidding,”she jokes,” it’s been definitely good, I’ve definitely grown in my abilities and strengths, it’s been good.”
“I’ve learned the power of optimism, I learned being negative doesn’t get you anywhere in life.This year we’ve been a lot more positive the previous three years. And it’s we’ve definitely won more games, we’ve played as a team and it’s a lot better atmosphere.” Adds Ball.
A cool thing to note, Kaitlyn got to play with her twin sister Ashleigh for three of the four years she was on the team.
Congratulations to Kaitlyn Ball for earning our Athlete of the Week, she will be earning a plaque from crown trophy.
