This feature is a part of The Register?s Allen County Area Athletes of the Month series. At the end of each month, The Register nominates three male and three female athletes for our readers to vote on and the winners get named Athlete of the Month and possibly have an opportunity to be featured in the paper throughout the next month. To nominate your favorite athlete click here or email the sports desk at [email protected].
You would think that after around three months of slaving away at a sport like softball, one might be interested in a break.
In Yates Center?s Madelynn Collins? case, you?d be dead wrong.
The soon-to-be-senior and ace pitcher for the Wildcat softball team has zero interest in a break for anything more than a day.
Ever since the season and school year ended, any inquiring minds could wander down to the Yates Center ball field complex and find Collins toiling away in some capacity.
?I love softball,? Collins said. ?I live down (at the Yates Center ball fields) during the summer time. I spend at least half the day there most days. If I?m not practicing or playing games then I?m either giving lessons or practicing with the younger girls. I also umpire almost every night too.?
That?s a pretty full load for someone who just wrapped up a 20-game season that culminated in a first-team unanimous All-Three Rivers League honor.
Collins went 8-3 as a starter with a 2.1 ERA over 70 innings with 93 strikeouts. She also led the way offensively with a .516 batting average and 33 total hits.
?She?s really come into her own, especially as a pitcher,? Yates Center head coach and Madelynn?s mom Abbie Collins said. ?We have some really good hitters in our league and she did a great job keeping them down.?
Coach?s kids always have and always will get a lot of scrutiny from their parents/head coaches but if it?s handled correctly as Collins does with her soon-to-be-senior daughter, it pays dividends.
?I know I?m harder on her sometimes than I am with the rest of the girls,? Coach Collins said. ?There?s no doubt about it. Sometimes I?ll go out to the mound when she?s pitching and the other girls will walk over and I?ll send them away. I?m not going to talk to her like player, it?s mother/daughter.?
But having a little more pressure doesn?t bother Madelynn in the slightest. She enjoys the familiar bond that softball brings that?s also shared by her freshman younger sister Morgan.
?I love my little sister,? Collins said. ?She?s probably my best friend and I love having my mom around too. She?s also one of my closest friends. I love having them both around.?
Last season, the Wildcats were stopped a couple rounds short of a state-bid by eventual regional champs Jayhawk-Linn in a one-score game. But, led by Collins in her senior year, the young Wildcat roster is poised to make another run at the state tournament before they lose the talented pitcher to graduation.
?I?m really nervous,? Collins said. ?It feels like yesterday I was just a freshman. It goes by so fast.?
