South Georgia - In The Game High School Sports Magazine

Despite their relatively young age, it’s not at all uncommon for middle schoolers to look ahead to college scholarships. In the Game’s conversation with Jada McGilberry, an eighth-grader at Pine Grove Middle School in Valdosta, was fairly typical. She is a very good two-sport athlete with excellent grades. She plays softball and basketball, but prefers softball. She plays on a travel team, and spends most of the year honing her craft on softball fields throughout the area. And one day, McGilberry wants to play softball for the Florida Gators.

It’s one thing to strive for a scholarship in college. It’s another thing entirely to already have your eyes on playing for one of the premier softball programs in the country. The Gators advanced to the championship game of the 2011 Women’s College World Series, eventually losing to Arizona State.

Athletics runs in McGilberry’s family. Her mother, Tiffany Wright, was a track athlete and cheerleader at Valdosta High. And McGilberry’s older brother is Tyler Hunter, now a defensive back with the Florida State Seminoles. Hunter was also selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2011 Major League Baseball draft. So maybe McGilberry’s dream of playing for the Gators isn’t such a long shot after all.

McGilberry, 13. has lived in Valdosta her whole life. She started playing softball and basketball when she was seven years old. These days, McGilberry is an outfielder/third baseman who gets to pitch on occasion. When In the Game spoke with her, the middle school softball season was over. Pine Grove qualified for the playoffs, beating Lowndes Middle in the first round. Against Tift in round two, Pine Grove lost, bringing its season to a close. Tift went on to win the championship.

McGilberry is a hard worker who gets along well with her teammates. She is willing to do anything in her power to make her team better and give them a chance to win. She enjoys playing softball because, when she’s out there on the field, her mind is clear and she focuses on nothing but playing. McGilberry keeps her distractions and problems away from the field. Softball is her escape, and she revels each time she steps on the field.

For most of her career, she has played in the outfield, splitting time between center field and left field. Of the two, she enjoys left more. “I can track the ball better in left. It’s easier to judge,” she says. This year, McGilberry pitched a little. That was a new experience for her - being in charge of the game, controlling the pace and setting the tone for her teammates. “It was fun but stressful,” she says. McGilberry says she doesn’t feel like she pitched very well, but she kept her head up and did the best she could. She threw in three games and, with a little more time and practice, could be a pretty good pitcher.

McGilberry has also shown that she can play well in big games. Too many times, young players don’t always handle pressure well. That’s not a problem for McGilberry. Last year as a seventh-grader, Pine Grove advanced to the championship game of a tournament. The game was a nail-biter = in the fourth inning, it was tied 0-0. With Adrienne Durden on third, McGilberry guided a single to center field, scoring Durden. Pine Grove held on for the 1-0 win.

McGilberry’s talent extends to the basketball court as well. She can play shooting guard, point guard or forward, and last year was an important part of Pine Grove’s undefeated regular season. She and her teammates didn’t lose a game until Coffee Middle School ended Pine Grove’s championship run in the second round of the playoffs. McGilberry loves the speed of basketball - it’s the opposite of softball. Instead of hanging around waiting for a ball to come to her, she is always in the middle of the action on the basketball court. She loves the crowd’s proximity to the action, and she enjoys being on the floor with her friends. For the 2011-2012 season, McGilberry would like to improve her ball-handling skills and sharpen her defense.

As much as she loves playing basketball, softball will always be her first love. She doesn’t play much basketball except for the middle school season, whereas in softball, she is on the field nearly the whole year. “I play some at the YMCA, but I don’t get serious about basketball until after softball ends,” she says.

In the future, McGilberry would like to keep playing softball and basketball. She hopes to be a member of the Lady Vikings teams in both sports, though softball has her attention for a post-high school career. McGilberry says she wants to play softball as long as she can, and she would like to play at the highest levels of the game. “I want a scholarship, and I would love to play for the Florida Gators,” she says.

Tiffany Wright believes her daughter has a future beyond high school. “She can go to college and be competitive. She’s smart, she analyzes the game and she understands the mental side of softball. I could see her going into coaching one day,” says Wright.

McGilberry is a straight-A student who realizes that she has to be strong academically to fulfill her dream of playing softball at the collegiate level. “It can be hard to keep up my grades. But if I do well in school, I will have a better chance of getting into a big college and playing sports,” she says.

McGilberry seems to have a keen understanding of what it will take to be successful in both academics and athletics, and it’s something her mother has noticed for a long time. “I could see all this when she was very young. From the time she was in the sixth grade, she’s looked ahead and wanted to go to college. She’s a very motivated young lady,” says Wright. ITG