RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
At the end of July, Madison Inscoe—an Extra Inning Softball 1st Team All-American and Class of 2022 Extra Elite 100 pitcher/infielder—decided to make some major changes in her softball journey.
After placing second at the PGF Premier Nationals in California, Madison took some time off to rest and reflect on where she was in the sport she loves and where it was leading.
Madison explains:
“I just felt like something was missing”.
As she watched her only sister, Emily, packing to move to college at Virginia Tech for her Freshman year, Madison recalls:
“It hit me. I knew I was beginning to want to play closer to home and to be a little closer to my only sister and my very small family. Sometimes you don’t realize what’s important, until your journey gets closer to the end.”
Having previously committed to Auburn, the school and the athlete decided to go separate ways.
“I loved Auburn and Coach (Mickey) Dean, he has been so amazing to me, but I knew I wanted to be closer to Virginia. I knew that loving Auburn and everything Coach Dean has done for me, wasn’t going to make my decision any easier. Ultimately, I knew I had to follow what I thought I needed most to make me happy.”
Madison, like many 2022 grads, had experienced the highs and lows of the recruiting rule changes, missed COVID seasons, the creation of the transfer portal and the other many changes facing her now senior.
“I just felt like I let many of the 2022 variables and timelines affect my thought process which I could feel was changing,” she recalls. “I love softball with all my heart, it’s everything to me, but something was just missing.”
Madison, who is a two-time Virginia State Div. II high school champion, decided to open her recruitment again and to take a second shot at the whole process.
She also decided to play for an-instate club team, Orion Hunter Elite, which is made up of coaches and players she known her entire travel ball career.
Says her father, Darryll Inscoe:
“Maddie wants to close out her club softball journey competing with players who are not only teammates on her high school team, but those she started playing with in Virginia. That’s how she wants to close that part of her journey.”
Looking at not just one, but two significant changes, the Inscoe family sat down to look at all sides of changing college commit and club team play.
“It was a scary thing to do, but I knew I had to do it. My Dad, my Mom and I discussed the pros and cons for hours before I made the decision. They wanted to make sure I understood the risks, but I was willing to accept the outcome no matter how it turned out.”
After she made the announcement on social media that the senior was back on the recruiting market, Madison recalls her dad giving her a huge compliment.
“’He told me, ‘That was the single most impressive, mature decision I have ever seen you make since you began playing this sport.”
Madison spent all of August visiting and talking to Power 5 and Mid-Major Conference coaches.
“Each of the schools I spoke to or visited, told me: ‘You’ve made a big decision, a mature decision’ and each wanting me to find the exact place where I belong. None of the schools who offered me pushed me for an answer or asked me for a timeline. None of them—not one—pressured me.”
“Every one of the schools that I went to,” Madison emphasizes, “went out of their way to make each visit amazing. They just wanted what was best for me.”
In the end, she explains, one school had everything she was searching for.
“I chose NC State because is a competitive program with everything athletically and academically I was searching for. It is 2 ½ hours from my home in Virginia and three hours away from my sister at Virginia Tech.”
“The coaches at NC State made an immediate impact on me and it’s a place where they feel I can make an immediate impact on their softball program. The coaches are just amazing people and it truly felt like an extended family there. I can’t wait to get started with them.”
Madison acknowledges her final decision took a circuitous path before concluding this weekend.
“My recruiting journey was far from normal,” she concludes, “but in 2021 what is normal anymore? I know this: for me, it has ended exactly where was supposed to.”