Week 6: Top high school softball performances in the South Sound
“She’s just unapologetically herself when she gets in the circle,” Puyallup head coach Alec Elliott said of freshman pitcher Jaycee Kemp.
Alec Elliott knew of the promising freshman pitcher on her way to Puyallup High, but this sort of instant dominance? Even the fifth-year head coach couldn’t see that much coming. Elliott, Puyallup’s softball and girls basketball coach, first knew Jaycee Kemp as a hooper.
Kemp’s mother, Jamie, coaches junior varsity basketball at Puyallup High, often reminding Elliott of what was to come. “You should see her play softball,” she’d tell Elliott. Jaycee dropped hints of her own.
“Oh, I hit 72 (mph) on walkthroughs the other day,” the freshman would tell her head coach. “I’m like, OK, sure you did,” Elliott thought. That was before he saw Kemp throw for the first time.
“When you get to see it consistently, day in, day out, it was eye-opening,” Elliott said. “It was pretty exciting. ” One month after entering a high-school pitcher’s circle for the first time, Kemp is the South Sound’s strikeout leader (151 K).