FHS offers a wide variety of sports, and each one of them has many accomplished and experienced athletes. Among them is Katie Harrington, who has committed to playing softball for Lafayette College at the D1 level. She plays both middle infield positions as well as third base on the team.

Harrington’s family has had a large impact in her decision to start playing softball. She said, “Softball is a big thing in my family. My older sister played softball and both of my parents coached, so I just wanted to follow in their footsteps. I decided to try softball and I stuck with it.” One of her role models in the sport is Aleshia Ocasio, who is a professional softball player. Harrington said, “She came to talk to our travel team, and she did it in a very humble way; she never bragged about her achievements and she’s really good at the sport and really driven.”

Unfortunately, it hasn’t always been easy for Harrington to get to where she is today, but she has found ways to overcome those obstacles. “[The hardest thing I’ve faced] is definitely when I’m in batting slumps, because that can be very hard mentally because when you can’t hit, which is a major part of the game, you get really down on yourself. I have to remind myself that it’s just a phase and that I’ll get better, since everyone goes through batting slumps.”

Harrington has received advice from her coaches on how to improve after making mistakes. “[My coaches said] that it is okay to make errors but it’s how you react after those errors that reflect who you are as a player. As long as you stay positive after a mistake, you’ll be okay because nobody is perfect.”

In order to achieve her potential as a softball player, Harrington puts in the extra work outside of practices and has been able to reap the rewards of her efforts. “I do batting on my own, and that really helps me because you can’t improve very much by only attending team practices; you have to practice by yourself as well. It also helps me be better prepared for practices and when I go to games I’m as ready as I possibly can be.”

Harrington is very dedicated to softball, and she states that it can be a struggle to manage the responsibilities of school and sports. Harrington said, “Because I take a lot of difficult classes that have a pretty big workload, I really struggle specifically around softball season; but I always manage to get everything done. My main priority has always been academics over athletics.”

Harrington has made many great strides as a softball player, and she states that her greatest accomplishment is “definitely committing to playing D-1 because it’s always been my dream to play in college at a high level. It’s really exciting and I’m just proud of myself because of that.”