Each week during the Road to the Alabama High School State Championships, Mark, Lee, and Michael will feature an “Athlete of the Week” right here!
With our Road to the Alabama High School State Championships starting to wind down, one of the final stops the Opening Kickoff made was at St. Paul’s Episcopal School where our Athlete of the Week is senior Madeline Howard!
Howard is a star on both sides of the ball for the Saints’ softball team. While her stats at the plate are incredibly impressive with a .408 batting average, a .478 on-base percentage, and five home runs, it’s her numbers on the mound that are truly jaw-dropping.
Madeline has an ERA of 1.88 along with 145 strikeouts this season, just 17 walks given up, and a sub one (.946) WHIP.
She just hit a major milestone as a senior with her 500th career strikeout. She also holds the school record for strikeouts in a season.
Her head coach Kayla Johnson weighed in on just how special of a player Madeline is both on and off the field.
“Madeleine is a player you want on every team. She’s a vocal leader, she gets the job done on the mound, and shes actually one of our team leaders in batting average. Having over 500 career strikeouts is a huge milestone and we are so proud of her. Glad to have her for a few more weeks for sure,” Johnson said.
Softball is Madeline’s passion and she simply never gets tired of it even though she has played for St. Paul’s since she was a seventh grader.
“I’ve never really had the thought of mind of being burnt out of softball. It’s always just kind of been a getaway for everything from me. It gets things off my mind. When I’m on the field everything else just goes away,” she said.
Madeline says that she plans to attend Wallace State Community College for the next two years and then says she will play wherever her softball future holds after that.
She also said her dream since she has been little is to play for the USA National Team one day.
St. Paul’s is still playing for a state championship despite Madeline’s school year ending as a student. The team heads down to Gulf Shores next week for the regional tournament with games on Tuesday and Wednesday in a double-elimination tournament where three wins are needed to reach the championship.
Congratulations to Madeline Howard on being named our Athlete of the Week and best of luck to St. Paul’s as they pursue a Blue Map!
You can listen to our full interview with Madeline right here and get all of our on-air content at WNSP Now wherever you get your podcasts:
