Sports Central: Bartow High School Softball

Hey everybody, welcome back to Sports Central. Neal Duncan alongside Gerald Richardson. This second segment, brought to us by Jimmy Johns. Two locations in Lakeland and great partners of tourism and sports marketing. But I'm excited. The return of football. Yeah, it's it's been too long. I don't think there should be an off season. I don't disagree, but I don't want 15 new leagues I want to watch the same teams that I like. They play year round. Yeah, the XFLs and all those that pop up. T

hey're kind of tough to they're tough to get into. Good luck to them. But I want to see my team, so. Well, it's no secret on this program or if you tune in to the sister show on Talk 14 30 WLKF, actually 96.7, I'm a Bartow guy. I love the Yellowjackets. And we actually have a Yellow jacket on the program today. Katelynn "Red" Oxley. I made the joke when- Well, first of all, welcome to Sports Central and thanks for coming on. I made the joke when I looked at the script and I'm like, wait,

Katelynn? That's because everybody knows you by Red! Correct? Right. You said you had a travel coach that didn't know your first name for two years. Yeah. But it's kind of it's kind of part of the part of who you are as a player. And you had an extremely successful freshman year for Bartow High School. Talk about what it means to go through all those years as a travel ball player. And then you get to high school and now Coach Rutenbar is putting the softball in your hand and putting a lot

of expectations. Talk about that a little bit. Well, it's very different because whenever you're in travel ball, you're in front of an audience audience, but it's more of your family, your friends, people that you know. So then whenever you go out on that field, it's like a bunch of other students. Like it's like a whole much of a bigger crowd that you don't know. So that adds to the pressure a little bit. But also, it was really weird for me as a freshman because I didn't really expect

to like play as much as I did not because I didn't think I was good enough. But because as a freshman, that's like kind of like not. Ethical for a high school team, because seniority and everything else that you want your seniors to play because it's their last year and it's very meaningful to them. So it was very like I was kind of not prepared as much as I should have been to play that much. Yeah, well, Ledger's 2021 softball pitcher of the year, 19-3 record, E.R.A. of .69, struck out o

ver 300 batters in 152 innings pitching. I'm pretty sure we know the reason why you were out there that much. Talk about that and the accomplishments that you had in that first year. And where do you go from that because you're only a sophomore this year? My plan for the next year is definitely to just keep on doing what I did last year. But I'm working on new things and trying to, like get stronger and I'm trying to work on my mental game a little bit more rather than what's going on in th

e game. Trying to prepare more outside of that field and to be ready for to be ready to go to that game, to be ready to do whatever I have to do to like lead my team to a victory. So it's more mental this season than it was than it is physical like it was last season. Yeah. Coach- reading a quote Coach had in your article there when this past season you were the player of the year He mentioned your strikeout ratio, which- 152 innings. The strikeout was two to one. He never had a pitcher

in Bartow history with that type of ratio. And I'm sure you're aware of the the history of Bartow and the great softball players and pitchers. What what do you account that to in regards to your strikeout performance, your ratio versus others? I definitely was I definitely use the strike zone, I definitely use deceiving the batter as like how I strike out so many people, I would make sure that my patterns for my pitching was like a tight enough zone, that it looked like it was a strike. An

d then the next time they- it was a strike. So the rise ball, I would make sure it looked like a strike. Then the next one would be a strike. That was my theory. That was how I got that many strikeouts because it was you couldn't tell the difference. That's how I was so accomplished in that many strikeouts. And coming into Bartow, I knew the history. I knew Lindsay Littlejohn. I knew everybody who went there And I wanted to be like them. I wanted to become One of the people who you look

up to, I wanted to be that person, but I had to do more than just strike out people. I had to be a good person. I had to be nice, not be nice to my teammates, but like respect them and like encourage them and not let them show that that I was defeated or anything else because they feed off the pitcher. You feed off the pitcher in a game. You have to be- you have to have a straight face. You have to not show any emotion. You have to be focused. And as the season went on, I got better at

that. And as I did that, I didn't show my emotion. And so I was more focused on the batter and helping my team. Awesome. What kind of spinning off of that, Once again, doing a little research- So no fastball, is that right? No, no fastball. So what's your what's in your your arsenal there of pitches? As of right now, I have my curve and my screw, which accounts for the fastball. And then I'm working on a couple of other pitches. As of right now, they're still in development. I'm still d

eveloping. And so my strikeout pitch last year was definitely my rise ball. And if they didn't score, some batters were like they wouldn't swing at it. I was like, oh, come on, just swing. But they wouldn't swing at it. So we would deceive them with the curveball but it was in the other batter's box. So it was like way out. And so sometimes they would be like, oh, that's just an outside pitch but it would break off at the last minute. And that's how I would get that strikeout. Did you find

it difficult being a freshman? You know, you talked about some of those things and being respect and having respect for the the players that came before and then the current, you know, juniors or seniors. Did you find it difficult to embrace the tradition of Bartow or- it feels like you said you're actually hungry to be a part of that tradition. So is it intimidating to walk on the field there at Bartow I guess, is a better question. It is very intimidating to have- The first thing you se

e whenever you walk into the dugout is the Hall of Fame. You see these lists of names that like have done these amazing things, have had these amazing accomplishments, and you want to be part of that So every time I walk into the dugout, I look at that and I say, I want to be a part of this. I want to have respect for my teammates. I want to be a leader. I want to be that person. So it's it was very intimidating to just see that and be like, how am I going to get there but as soon as th

e process started with Coach Rutenbar, He definitely helped me to get there, to be able to have the mental toughness, to be able to be losing a game eight to zero and still be doing my job and then rely on my teammates to be able to hit the ball, to be able to make the plays whenever it's a ground ball, pop fly or even a base hit You can rely on your teammates to be able to back you and come back from that game. So my teammates helped me and my coach helped me to get to where I wanted to b

e. Fantastic. After your freshman year, obviously, softball pitcher of the year. Nineteen and three, all the other stats that Neal went through. Um. What takes you to that next level, what are a few goals that you have for this year to to continue where you're at and not only continue, but to take that next step and be even better? Well, this summer was definitely A huge step towards that, because I was playing these like awesome teams, like they were amazing. They could hit everything

like they were just like they were hitters, they were like batters. They could hit the ball. And I hadn't faced a whole lot of that until this year because I had dominated so much. But after this summer, I was like, OK, so I can not miss anywhere near the plate. I have to be on the corners. I have to be where they can not touch the ball or elsewhere where it's gone, like it's just going. So I had to definitely think about it and be more accurate. And I think that's what's going to help m

e this season, to be keep on doing what I'm doing, because I'm not going to let it anywhere near to where it's going to go over anymore because that was definitely rough. So that's great. So the Olympics is completed. Of course, Team USA, USA softball was in the Olympics. They actually started their training in Polk County in 2020 before before COVID struck and delayed the games, and they started again at Florida Southern College in January of 2021. Did you get a chance to go over there

in 2020 and see Team USA? I didn't get the chance to go over there, but I definitely was seeing a lot of it on Twitter and stuff. So I definitely kept up with it and I kept up with it this year. I, I was very amazed with how well they did and how much softball has become like, because whenever I was little, it wasn't like I went to Christina Park. I did my thing tee ball great. But I didn't see it on TV. I didn't see like how big of a deal like it was like what I could become So I was just

doing it for fun. I was just there to hit the ball. But now I'm seeing it on TV. I'm like, OK, that's what I want to do. That's where I want to go. That's my end goal. Like it's- That was my next question. Yeah, like that's just what it is. Fantastic. And all of this. So you've only been pitching four years? Yeah, four years. Started pitching at 11. How about that. You haven't seen her pitch in person? I have. Again, I'm a Bartow guy and it's not fair. It's really not fair. I know one of

our show producers was saying, oh, maybe we could go out there and you guys could face Red. No, not going to happen, not going to be on film. Not going to happen. No, I think we would love that. That would be great. Well, so we talked about the ultimate goal. That's fantastic. And as we're starting to run a little short on time, What is that singular favorite moment that you've had Either was in travel ball or this past season being a Yellow Jacket. What is your favorite all time moment be

ing a softball player? It was definitely that there was this one game I was on Bartow and a girl hit a home run off me at the Kissimmee Classic, and we were already down. So like I came back up to bat and I was like, OK, I got to help my team because me pitching isn't helping my team at this moment. So I took a breath and I was like, OK, how am I going to help my team here? Well, I was going for a base hit and I hit it over. So I was like, can we just cancel out the other home run? It nev

er happened. So I help my team in another way. And that it showed me that I can help my team, not just with pitching, but with like fielding hitting and just being a good teammate. Like it really opened my eyes. Well, fantastic Red. We wish you nothing but success in the future. It's hard to believe that you're only a sophomore, you're a seasoned pro. You're doing so great on this interview. So good luck to you. And we'll definitely have you back on Sports Central Thank you.