Lake Creek softball is USA Today High School Sports Awards Girls Team of the Year
The Lake Creek High School (Texas) softball team was named the 2022 USA Today High School Sports Awards Girls Team of the Year during the digital show on July 31.
The USA Today High School Sports Awards is the largest high school sports recognition program in the country. Over 800 athletes were honored and winners for 29 sports and other special awards were announced during the live show, which was hosted by former NFL tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Vernon Davis.
Behind unflappable junior pitcher and slugger Ava Brown, Lake Creek was perfect in every sense of the word during the 2022 season — just the school’s third year of varsity competition. On their way to a 41-0 season and No. 1 national ranking in the final Paste BN Super 25, the Lions outscored their opponents 337-33.
Their 19th shutout of the season, a 7-0 rout of Georgetown, clinched the Texas 5A state title and the first softball championship in school history. The catalyst was Brown, a Florida commit who fired a 1-hitter with no walks and eight strikeouts in the state game and racked up an amazing 335 strikeouts in 183 ⅓ innings pitched this season.
Head coach Michell Rochinski deployed another star junior in leadoff hitter Maddie McKee, who hit .511 at the plate and tormented opposing pitchers with 77 stolen bases. But there were many standouts in the Lions’ relentless lineup that combined to club 29 home runs, 16 triples and 71 doubles. With only three total seniors on this year’s roster, we haven’t heard the last from Lake Creek Softball, which has won 79 of its last 81 games.
Lake Creek edged out fellow finalists: The Hazel Green High School (Alabama) girls basketball team, which captured its fifth consecutive state title in Alabama Class 6A, finishing with an average margin of victory of 35 points and on a 59-game win streak; And the Loyola Marymount High School (California) girls volleyball team, which captured California’s Southern Section Division I and Open Division volleyball championships on their way to a 35-0 season against state and national powerhouses.