RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
Alana Vawter has emerged as one of the top prospects in the 2019 class and a good candidate for the 2019 Extra Elite 100 rankings not just because she’s a dangerous threat with her arm and her bat, but also because the 6-foot multi-sport athlete is a 4.0 GPA student with a 30 ACT and has been the Class President all four years at Staley (Missouri) High.
Recently profiled by the Kansas City (Missouri) ABC affiliate KMBC, Alana is currently batting .574 for her high school team (15-2) as a senior this fall with a .667 on-base percentage, seven home runs and 20 RBI while using her seven pitches–including a fastball that hits up to 66 mph–to compile a 12-1 pitch mark with a 0.30 ERA and 92 K’s (over seven per game).
As a freshman in 2015, she pitched and hit the Falcons to a Class 4A state title (largest in Missouri) along with 3rd place finish last fall.
Impressively, she’s been a 1st Team All-Conference honoree during her high school career in three sports: softball, swimming and track (discus) and was selected as one of five finalists for Homecoming Queen which will be announced this Friday!
Alana has played with the KC Gold and Jersey Intensity club organizations and at the 18U, 16U 15U and 14U levels has finished no lower than 5th in prestigious national events such as PGF, Boulder IDT and Colorado Sparkler Jr.
In 2016, she committed to Texas under Connie Clark, but when the long-time coach resigned earlier this year, it threw her college status up in the air and she’s currently looking at offers from Texas and Stanford.
In her first blog for Extra Inning Softball, Alana discusses her love for college football and underdogs and how that ties into her softball journey that’s led her to where she is today…
*****
I love college football!
I love watching the energy of an intense game. I love watching players perform with such passion for their school and their teammates. I love watching the fans’ dedication shown through some awfully crazy outfits.
But my favorite thing about college football would have to be watching a good old-fashioned underdog victory. I love watching a team that people doubted from the beginning come away with a win that was supposed to be borderline impossible for them.
Or maybe they weren’t exactly doubted but simply unknown. Their opponent had the bigger name, so it automatically meant that the smaller named school would lose. Because that tends to be what occurs, right?
The bigger the name, the more talented the team, right?
That is, until the underdog comes out as champions. The team that once flew under the radar has now turned out to be quite the threat. It comes to most as a shock; however, to those who have lived out the underdog title, they’re not as surprised.
Speaking from experience, coming from the bottom makes the journey to the top just that much more exciting.
My journey began when I was eight-years-old and decided that throwing a neon yellow ball towards people would be fun. Little did I know I would actually fall in love with it!
The journey begins to pick up at age 14 when I was at the Hall of Fame tournament, playing in Oklahoma City at possibly the most talked-about softball stadium in the country.
