Kaylynn Jones has an interesting perspective on the 2020 Olympic Games and who she thinks will win.
The 2024 grad, who is one of the top second basemen in her class, lives in Southern California but has played softball in Japan and Italy—two of the other countries already in next year’s Tokyo Olympics—as her father’s work has taken her abroad.
Who’s her pick?
“They are both very well coached,” Kaylynn says of the Japanese and Italian National Teams. “Both teams are very talented, but as for who do I think will win? Honestly, I think Japan will win.”
The 8th grader had the experience of a lifetime when she lived in Japan twice over the last years getting and got to play with several of the top athletes in the country.
“Japan is a very, very well-taught team,” the middle infielder continues. “They practice for eight to nine hours at a time. The Japanese are very technical and fundamentally sound in the work they do and how they accomplish i. They work their butts off no matter what it comes down to and are down to make any kind of sacrifice to help their team. That’s why I think Japan has a better chance.”
The description of the Japanese players by Kaylynn sounds like she could be describing herself.
Brian Tidd, her coach with the Athletics-Mercado/Tidd team that finished 2nd at this summer’s PGF 14U Platinum Nationals, says: “Kaylnn is a five-tool player who hits for power, slaps and swings away depending on how the defense is playing her. She is very intelligent and understands the game she plays.”
Nicknamed “K-Dub,” she hit leadoff for the A’s and hit .503 (94-for-187) scoring 80 runs and stealing 50 bases.
Adds Coach Tidd: “Kaylynn works as hard as any player I have ever coached. She gives you everything she has and wants to get better every day. I have never had a player hit over .500 for the entire season and she is something special. As one Pac-12 coach recently commented about her, ‘She is the player who never gets out, you can’t keep her off the bases.’”
Kaylynn started playing travel ball at the age of 8 on a 2004 team where she was the starting catcher. After playing with them for several months, she moved to a 2003 team within the same organization that needed a middle infielder.
She became the starting second baseman and played with that team up until she moved to Italy for her father’s work.
“While in Italy, we were hoping she would be able to play with the Italians,” explains the athlete’s father, Brad Jones, “but she was too young so after six months, we moved back to California to play for Dave Mercado’s 2005 team.”
Kaylynn was the starting second baseman/leadoff hitter for the highly-ranked team for two years, before she was forced to move again internationally, this time to Japan, with her family.
She became the starting third baseman for a local Japanese team for about six months. During her playing time there, Kaylynn’s team won three tournaments and she was named to two-all tournament teams, finishing with a team-high .489 batting average.
While playing ball in Japan was a great experience, the athlete missed playing with her friends in the U.S. according to her father.