Top 2029 Prospects To Watch In Southern California

For as long as college softball has been played, Southern California has arguably boasted more elite talent than anywhere else in the United States. From Los Angeles to Orange County and from San Diego to the Inland Empire, Southern California has been sending great players to the best college programs in the country for many decades, and that pipeline does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon.   Below, Prep Softball highlights five of the top Southern California prospects in the class of 2029.    Kendall Vickers helped lead her team to a championship at the Colorado Sparkler over the summer, thanks in part to a circus catch on a deep fly ball in right field with the bases loaded to save at least three runs from scoring. The great play was nothing new for Vickers, who has as much range as any outfielder in her class and is not afraid to lay out and put her body on the line. She also has a cannon for an arm and can gun down runners at home plate from the outfield on the fly. And her offense is no slouch, either—Vickers hit .391 in the fall of 2024 and has a sweet lefty swing that leaves no movement wasted. She has easy-looking power and can drive the ball out of the park to any part of the field.     We highlighted [player_tooltip player_id='143423' first='Grace' last='Kumpel'] in our <a href="https://prepsoftball.com/2025/08/20/early-risers-2029s-already-on-college-coaches-radars/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">piece</a> in August on 2029s already on college coaches' radars, and she has continued to perform well as the summer turned to the fall. Kumpel was named the top pitcher at a Pacific Coast Fastpitch League tournament back in April and has great lateral movement to both sides of the plate, playing her curveball and screwball off of each other to keep batters off balance. Her rise ball is also a go-to pitch in two-strike counts and is very difficult for hitters to lay off. Kumpel shows impressive poise in the circle and never looks rattled, and can induce a ground ball for a double play when the situation calls for it. She fields her position better than most and can handle the bat as well.     Coming from a military family, [player_tooltip player_id='98010' first='Aubrey' last='Birtness'] moved around a lot growing up but has now settled in the Los Angeles area, where she consistently faces some of the best competition around. She mixes speeds well, utilizing a fastball and changeup to prevent batters from sitting on any of her pitches, and her command is especially sharp on her arm side, making her especially tough on righties. Birtness throws right-handed but bats from the left side, and has outstanding bat speed and good pitch recognition skills. She may not hit for much extra-base power, but she uses the whole field and can be a sparkplug at the top of her team's lineup.     A strong pull hitter who regularly laces doubles in the gaps and down the lines, Kaylee Matthews is an all-around force for her Explosion 16U team. She is an alert baserunner, advancing an extra 60 feet on a throw to the plate or when a ball gets away, and has an excellent arm behind the plate, firing lasers to backpick runners at second base and catch them in a rundown. Trying to steal on Mathews often proves to be a fool's errand, as she puts the ball right on the money almost every time with a pop time of 1.8 seconds. Offensively, Matthews anchors her team's lineup in the fourth spot, slashing .430/.492/.632 with four home runs, 62 runs batted in and a contact rate of 92 percent.     [player_tooltip player_id='144006' first='Annabel' last='Sherman']'s hometown of Norco has long been a softball hotbed, and she looks like the next great player to come from the city known as "Horsetown, USA." Sherman maintains her confidence and resilience in high-pressure situations and worked her way back from a knee injury in her first year playing 14U. At the Zoom Into June tournament early in the summer, Sherman blasted three home runs, including a walk-off three-run shot. Her exit velocity has reached 72.8 miles per hour, and she brings the heat in the circle as well, using her fastball to get ahead in the count before finishing hitters off with her rise ball and breaking pitches. She is also a serious student, carrying a 4.0 GPA, and hopes to study forensic science in college.

For as long as college softball has been played, Southern California has arguably boasted more elite talent than anywhere else in the United States. From Los Angeles to Orange County and from San Diego to the Inland Empire, Southern California has been sending great players to the best college programs in the country for many decades, and that pipeline does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon.