Top 2030 Prospects To Watch In Virginia

Virginia has the best of all worlds, with a varied climate, access to major cities and nine NCAA Division I softball teams—including two strong Atlantic Coast Conference programs and two mid-major powerhouses in Liberty and James Madison. It also produces a steady pipeline of young softball stars to the college ranks every year, from the Washington D.C. area to the Hampton Roads region and everywhere in between.   The class of 2030 is already looking like another outstanding crop of recruits. Below, Prep Softball highlights five 2030 prospects from Virginia who college coaches will want to be sure not to miss.    Autumn Adkins played with her high school junior varsity team last spring as a seventh grader, and even with a limited sample size, she showed what she could be capable of in the years to come. Adkins had five hits in seven at-bats, including a triple and a double, and walked five times without a strikeout — good for an OPS of 1.989. She also had a perfect fielding percentage and a 2.15 ERA in 13 innings pitched, striking out 25 batters against just five walks while holding opponents to a mere .120 batting average. Adkins kept up that level of excellence over the summer with her club team, using a drop ball, curveball and an off-speed rise to generate whiffs and well-located fastballs to catch hitters looking. Her arsenal is effective against righties and lefties alike.     You don't see many catchers who also play the outfield and can slap, but Reese Halloran is a rare breed. She can hit away as well, with a smooth-looking left-handed swing that can produce hard-hit balls to the opposite field. Unlike most catchers, Halloran throws lefty as well, and she has a cannon behind the plate, nabbing runners who have strayed too far off their bases. She remains alert at all times and executes textbook tags on runners trying to score. Halloran remains calm when she can't initially handle pitches in the dirt, firing to first when she needs to complete a strikeout. She has the speed to beat out infield grounders and will take extra bases when a ball gets thrown away.     Emily Gurzo is in the middle of a stellar fall season, with a strong performance at a September tournament in Williamsburg. A left-handed hitter, she has clean mechanics at the plate, concentrating on the ball with good gap-to-gap power. Gurzo takes what pitchers give her and does not try to do too much, hitting the ball to the back side of the field on pitches on the outside edge and even slightly out of the zone. She can play first base and anywhere in the outfield, and she will not need to change much with her swing as she gets older and begins to face more advanced pitching.     Before her summer season ended abruptly due to a hand injury, Genevieve Long was batting .381 with a .509 on-base percentage and a .998 OPS, driving in 31 runs and walking 14 times compared with just three strikeouts. The daughter of a former pitcher at Marshall University, Long returned to action good as new, playing top-notch defense at second base and helping her team in a multitude of ways offensively. She can spear hot ground balls on the infield and throw runners out from her knees, and she can also range toward the middle of the diamond to take charge on tricky fly balls. Long does a good job covering first on little dribblers to the right side as well. She uses the whole field at the plate, and while her power is not fully developed yet, her other tools are present in spades. Long was a USA Softball All-American this year and also plays volleyball.     Emma Taylor hit for the cycle in a middle school playoff game in late October, collecting an additional triple just for good measure and finishing with four RBI and 13 total bases. That followed an exemplary performance at the Starz Gold Fall Showcase, where Taylor hit .500 with two home runs and seven RBI while playing shortstop and third base. She can play both middle infield spots and catcher, making her a versatile defender if there ever was one. Taylor makes hitting extra-base hits look easy, sometimes not even fully following through on her swing but still sending the ball over the fence. She looks like she is flying around the bases, legging out triples to left field from the right-handed batters' box. Taylor had an excellent summer season as well, with great showings at Scenic City and Triple Crown Nationals. Her overhand throw has reached 65 miles per hour, and she has attended camps at Virginia Tech, Delaware and Longwood.

Virginia has the best of all worlds, with a varied climate, access to major cities and nine NCAA Division I softball teams—including two strong Atlantic Coast Conference programs and two mid-major powerhouses in Liberty and James Madison. It also produces a steady pipeline of young softball stars to the college ranks every year, from the Washington D.C. area to the Hampton Roads region and everywhere in between.