Prospects Raising Their Stock This Summer Season

Summer is the peak of travel softball season, with prospects traveling all over the country to play in tournaments and attract attention from college coaches. These five players have already made considerable improvements over the first few weeks of this summer and are sure to remain on coaches' radars going forward.   From powerful sluggers to speedy slappers to flamethrowers in the circle, Prep Softball highlights five prospects who are raising their stock with their club teams this summer.    Nola Tylke was already on the map heading into this summer. As a high school sophomore, she had a .515 batting average and a 1.475 OPS in 117 plate appearances with 18 doubles, five triples, four home runs and 46 runs batted in. But she has taken her performance to another level in recent weeks. At the Top Gun Tournament in Kansas City, Mo., in June, Tylke hit .500 against high-level competition, spraying line drives all over the field and using her speed to take extra bases. She can play any infield position, with her strong arm serving her well at shortstop and third base. Tylke has been part of USA Softball's High Performance Program and has attended camps at Michigan, Mississippi State, Ohio State, Virginia Tech and more, and is certain to hear from many top programs when her formal recruitment begins in September. She is also a standout in the classroom, carrying a 4.21 GPA into her junior year.     Checking in at <a href="https://prepsoftball.com/national/player-rankings/2027-national-rankings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">No. 3 in Prep Softball's 2027 national rankings</a>, Morgan Maxwell has all the tools to succeed at the upper echelons of college softball. She is making her way across the country this summer, already performing well at major tournaments in Florida, Kansas and Colorado in June, with stops in Georgia and California still to come. Maxwell markets herself well and has a large social media following, and also maintains an impressive 4.33 GPA. A two-way standout who pitches left-handed but bats righty, Maxwell throws a fastball, two kinds of curveballs, a drop ball and a changeup, with the change coming in around 15 miles per hour slower than her other pitches. At the high school level, she hit .416 with a 1.401 OPS, seven homers and 29 RBI as a sophomore, and she has been to camps at the likes of Tennessee, Florida State, Oklahoma and Arkansas.     Brooke Kearns is in the midst of a busy summer heading into her senior year. She plays high school softball in the talent-rich Houston area and has already competed at the IG Summer Kickoff, the Hotshots Summer Invite and the Grit Experience Camp, with more tournaments to follow. Kearns can play both middle infield spots but is at her best in the outfield, with great range and a rocket arm that regularly cuts down runners at home plate. And she is no slouch at the plate either, with a .438 average, 1.225 OPS and more walks than strikeouts through three high school seasons. With home run power to the pull side and the ability to hit for extra bases to all fields, Kearns is among the most well-rounded players in her class, and her skills should translate well to the college game.     The Florida panhandle has long been a hotbed for softball talent, and Natalia Taylor is up there with the best of them. She put up a 1.031 OPS in the spring as a junior, and had career highs in hits, runs, homers and walks. She has built upon that fantastic season through the early part of the summer, helping lead her travel team to a third-place finish at the Top Gun Invitational. Tall and muscular, Taylor possesses outstanding bat speed and exit velocity at the plate and can make solid contact on pitches well outside the strike zone. She plays both corner infield spots as well as catcher, and was perfect in 51 fielding chances at the Top Gun Invitational, mostly at first base. With appearances at the Atlanta Legacy tournament in Georgia and PGF Nationals in California coming up, college coaches still have several opportunities to see Taylor in action before she begins her senior year.     Asher Thompson, <a href="https://prepsoftball.com/national/player-rankings/2027-national-rankings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the No. 7 prospect in Prep Softball's 2027 rankings</a>, already has a highlight she will remember forever this summer, hitting a walk-off three-run home run with her team down to its last strike in June. She plays perhaps the two toughest positions on the diamond—shortstop and catcher—and has been busy on the camp circuit, visiting Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Clemson and South Carolina within the last year. Thompson's power is her most obvious tool, with the ball exploding off her bat, but she can also stroke line drives to the backside gap and hit hard ground balls through the middle. She is a slick defender at short and can make tough plays to her backhand side and field tricky hops to start double plays.

Summer is the peak of travel softball season, with prospects traveling all over the country to play in tournaments and attract attention from college coaches. These five players have already made considerable improvements over the first few weeks of this summer and are sure to remain on coaches' radars going forward.