Extra Inning Softball National Player of the Week (April 15, 2018)

We announce this week’s Extra Inning Softball National High School Player of the Week awards by spotlighting a player who’s considered the top recruit in her class and is proving to be unstoppable at the plate and on the basepaths.

And our co-runners-up are both two-way stars who are breaking records in the circle and at the plate.

If you’d like to nominate players for future consideration, email us at [email protected].

We’re looking for top performances in high school play each week that can be on a single game or cumulative week basis.

***

Extra Inning Softball’s National High School Player of the Week

Jayda Coleman (The Colony, Texas)

If you follow club and/or high school softball on a national scale, you’ve probably heard of Jayda Coleman, the outstanding sophomore who not only is considered one of the top recruits in the Class of 2020, she’s rated as one of the top prospects in any age division.

The Oklahoma Sooner commit can do it all on the field—hit for average and for power, play defense with efficiency and flair and steal bases against the best catchers in the game.

In 2017 Jayda was an All-American honoree after a very impressive freshman campaign when the lefty shortstop hit .653, stole 53 bases, smacked 12 home runs, scored 74 runs and knocked in 32 runs to earn every award possible: 1^st Team USA Today All-American, Dallas Morning News Player of the Year, 5A All-State Tournament honors and the 14-5A District MVP.

As good as 2017 was for the Texas native, this year is shaping up to be even better, at least statistically, in several categories.

In three games this week, Jayda went 8-for-11 (.727 batting average) with four steals, seven runs scored and led her team to a 2-1 mark.

In a Monday game versus Creekview, Jayda went 2-for-3 with a single and double, two steals and a pair of runs scored. Tuesday at Lake Dallas, she went 5-for-5 with five runs scored, three RBI and a steal and yesterday (Saturday), the future Sooner went 1-for-3 with a double and a steal.

For the season the standout Texan has a .698 batting average, 12 doubles, seven triples, 24 RBI, 39 steals (caught just twice) and 50 runs scored in 27 games.

Heading into Saturday’s game, the Texas sophomore had a .750 on-base percentage, a 1.193 slugging percentage and a stellar 1.943 OPS. Jayda is also batting .727 with runners in scoring position.

One of her most impressive achievements is she hasn’t struck out all year in her 99 plate appearances.

“I been hitting trying to focus on hitting better pitches,” Jayda said before Saturday’s game. “and also making every at-bat count by hitting good pitches and, if they try to walk me, I will take the walk.”

“If they do pitch to me, I want to swing at good pitches and just hit lines drives up the middle. Also, I like to use all my tools by slapping and bunting, just to always having the defense on its toes.”

Co-Runner-Up National Player of the Week

Alyssa Arden (White House Heritage, White House, Tennessee)

Last week we had our first repeat National Player of the Year and with Alyssa this week we have our first Runner-Up repeat honoree as the senior who’s signed with Tennessee Tech set two Robertson Count records this week while passing some significant milestones.

Since she was honored the first time on March 25^th, the Tennessee standout passed the 1,000 career strikeout mark and currently is at 1,091. She also passed the 200 career RBI mark this week and now stands at 206 runs plated.

Not too many high school softball players have ever passed those two milestones in their prep careers.

Impressively, according to the MaxPreps Tennessee leader boards for Hitting and Pitching as of mid-week, Alyssa was in the Top 10 for seven of the 10 categories, excluding steals and fielding %.

This week, the future Golden Eagle went 4-0 with four complete games, one no-hitter and in 19 innings had 42 strikeouts (more than 15 per game) and allowed only four hits and no-earned runs. Offensively, she went 9-for-14 at the plate for a .643 batting average and a 0.72 on-base percentage including two home runs and seven RBI.

For the year, the senior is 14-1 with a 0.89 ERA and 176 K’s in 86 1/3^rd innings with four no-hitters and five shutouts. Her batting totals are a .596 batting average (24-for-57) with seven home runs and 26 RBI while averaging 14.7 K’s per game and limiting opponents to a .135 batting average.

Co-Runner-Up National Player of the Week

Alyson Marcum (Bernie, Missouri)

Another sophomore who’s putting up big numbers is lefty pitcher and power hitter Alyson Marcum who went 10-15 at the plate and in 10 innings gave up just one hit while striking out 16.

Monday, Alyson pitched three innings and gave up one hit with five strikeouts and went 4-for-4 at the plate.

Tuesday Bernie High played a doubleheader away, but both games were in different towns but it didn’t slowdown the Missouri sophomore who pitched six innings with six K’s in Game 1 while doing 2-for-5 batting and then went came in to close the game by pitching the last inning and shutting down the side with two K’s and a ground out while going 1-for-2 with a walk.

Thursday, Alyson again came in to close out the last inning and struck out all three batters while going 3-for-3 with two home runs and a walk.

Her stats for the year are video-game like: a batting average of .757 with an on-base percent of .827 with six home runs and 13 walks, many intentional. In the circle she’s 9-0 with 77 K’s in 44 2/3^rd innings with only eight walks and six earned runs allowed all season (her ERA is 0.94).

In leading her team to a 12-1 record, the impressive two-way threat says, “Our season has been going way better than we ever thought possible!”

“I couldn’t ask for a better group of girls to get to play high school ball with. We are lucky to have really good coaches and we can’t wait for the rest of the season since the playoffs are only a few weeks away.”

Previous National Players of the Week:

• April 8: P Megan Faraimo (Cathedral Catholic, San Diego, California)
• April 1: C Macy Simmons (Hamilton, Chandler, Arizona)
• March 25: C Paige Pfent (Springstead, Spring Hill, Florida)
• March 18: SS/OF Deja Westbrook (Arcadia, California)
• March 11: P Megan Faraimo (Cathedral Catholic, San Diego, California)