Published: May 16, 2008 06:14 pm            

Paige's Pace

Take the ball and run with it approach pays off with Division I scholarship for Raceland's All-American girl

RACELAND — What does an All-American girl do right before she graduates from high school? She signs a Division I athletic scholarship.

Raceland senior Paige VanHoose has inked a letter of intent to continue her softball career at the University of Dayton, an Atlantic 10 Conference team.

“I’ve always thought I’ve wanted to play softball after high school,” VanHoose said. “I don’t want to quit playing, so hopefully it works out good.”

Softball’s not the only thing VanHoose has going for her, excelling in several areas while at Raceland.

“She’s the All-American kid, she’s everything rolled into one,” Raceland coach Jason Clark said. “She’s a 3.95 GPA, the football Homecoming Queen, she’s captain of the cheerleaders, captain of the volleyball team ... She does it all. She’s just one of those kids ... I don’t know of anything she’s not good at.”

VanHoose began playing softball as a third-grader, growing up in the Raceland school system. Always the out-going type, her pitching career just took off one day and she hasn’t looked back.

“In All-stars, my coach was pretty easy-going and he said, ‘Who wants to pitch?’ and I said ‘I will.’ Then I started taking pitching lessons,” VanHoose said.

The right-hander headed to KC Diamond and began taking lessons with pitching coach Tony Ellis. She’s also played travel ball during the summers with the KC Diamond Gems.

“(Tony) practically taught me everything,” VanHoose said.

VanHoose played varsity softball for the Lady Rams since seventh-grade, playing second base or in the outfield. She took over as the pitcher in her sophomore season when the previous pitcher was lost to graduation. Since then, she’s thrown almost every game in the past three years with a combined 48-26 record, winning nearly 55 percent of her matchups.

She’s currently 15-6 on the season for the Lady Rams (16-6), pitching all but one game of a doubleheader earlier this week.

All of VanHoose’s experience and time logged in pitching lessons has helped the Lady Rams this season after losing several players to graduation and inaugurating Clark in his first year as head softball coach.

“Tony Ellis does a great job with her so I figured when I inherited her, it wasn’t broke. So I didn’t need to fix too much,” Clark said. “We’ve really tried to work on location and spots and things of that nature this year.”

VanHoose entered the last week of the regular season only allowing about two runs per game, most of which were unearned, according to Clark. However, that’s not the only thing she’s been contributing to the team.

“She’s batting .308 right now, she’s leading us in stolen bases and leading us in runs scored, so she does a lot for our team both offensively and on the mound,” Clark said.

It’s also the little things that count, things most spectators probably wouldn’t even notice.

“She may have a bad inning and get roughed up for a couple of runs but she’s the first one in the dugout leading the cheers,” Clark said. “She’s the one telling everyone else to get up or she’s the one moving other people around, telling them what they need to do. Everybody just feeds off Paige.”

VanHoose has also proven herself to be a hard worker, especially on the field. Clark says that she may pitch for two or three solid hours a night, just to work on things. She also attends clinics and camps when possible.

That type of work ethic is sure to be an asset once she reaches the college level, especially since she plans to be a pre-medicine major. VanHoose says she’s definitely up to the challenge.

“I’m going to play as hard as I can and do the best I can,” she said. “I’m kind of nervous about going but I’m ready for a change.”

Choosing Dayton wasn’t that hard of a decision for her.

“I was looking at Centre and Eastern Kentucky, but when I went to Dayton I just fell in love with their campus,” she said. “I knew I really wanted to go there so I kept talking to the coach. She told me it was going to be a lot of hard work but I’ve always worked hard in practice.”

Clark isn’t worried about her transition to the collegiate level, either.

“The things that she does for our team is just intangible and she can do that at the college level, too,” he said. “She’s got so much athleticism, speed, quickness and a good bat. She’s also got a really good sense of how to play softball and that’s going to carry over to the college level as well.”

VanHoose became the first softball player from Raceland to sign with a Division I school.

        

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