In high school, Katie Worley, a member of the Georgia State softball team, was a Hall of Famer and pitched perfect games.
Yes, multiple perfect games. Not just one.
At Milton High School (Fla.) she was the team MVP and led the team in home run’s, RBI’s, and stolen bases her senior year in addition to being one of the state’s premier pitchers.
Worley was featured in the “Faces In The Crowd” segment of the March 12, 2012 issue of Sports Illustrated.
The piece detailed her 22 strikeout performance against Navarre High (Fla.) and the rest her stellar senior year.
“Everyone at the high school was so excited”, Worley said. “The [Navarre] game . . . was three hours and five minutes long. I threw 147 pitches and was totally gassed when we got done.”
Worley says her most memorable game wasn’t even the Navarre High game. Instead, she said her biggest game at Milton High was beating Tate High School (Fla.) during her junior year.
“We beat Tate High School, a ranked team and the preseason favorite to go to the Final Four at state”, she said. “I led the game off with a home run and had 16 strikeouts. Our head coach got thrown out of the game for questioning a call and my dad had to finish coaching the game”.
Florida is traditionally a hotbed for high school and college softball, yet Worley decided to bring her talents north, to Georgia State.
“The campus was totally different from anywhere else I had visited, being in downtown Atlanta, and I loved it,” she said. “My family and I were very comfortable with Coach Kincaid and I thought it would be a good fit.”
Coach Kincaid also had Worley in mind when began planning his recruiting efforts for the class of 2012.
“She was one of the best prospects at her position in the Class of 2012”, Kincaid said. “She brings a good work ethic and gives us a different look in the circle because she is more of a power pitcher. We like her intensity and presence in the circle. Like all freshmen, she has to learn how to play in college softball, which is an ongoing process. We feel that the more innings she pitches, the better she will get.”
Kincaid also said Worley has the potential to become an all-conference type of performer in the future and could make an immediate impact for this season’s squad.
Worley seem to agree with Coach Kincaid’s assessment and has concrete and lofty goals for her and the team as a whole.
“I want to set personal records at Georgia State and get to the NCAA Tournament all four years,” she said.
