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Dakota McDaniel. Remember the name. The LaGrange freshman is making waves on the travel softball circuit and now she is bringing that high-level talent to the Grangers. 

McDaniel, a pitcher, helped the Birmingham Thunderbolts claim the 14u National Championship in California this past weekend.

“It was really high stakes and it was in California, so we had these mountains in the background, it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” McDaniel said. “You could just tell it was another level of softball.”

McDaniel was no bystander or bench-rider during this trek to California, she was one of the key catalysts for the Bolts coming away with a win. She got the lion’s share of work in the circle for the Bolts, pitching 27.2 innings in total with a staggeringly low ERA of .772 with 22 strikeouts. McDaniel started the championship game, where she threw a complete game to help the Bolts to a 3-2 victory.

“When I went out there I just tried to remain calm,” McDaniel said. “When I go out there I don’t show a lot of emotion because once I get rattled, it’s hard to come back from that. When I went out there, I just took a few deep breaths and just stayed calm.

“There was a moment that was so stressful after I let up two triples in a row and the cut out lead to 3-2 and they almost tied the game in the seventh and that was really stressful, but when we won I can remember I started jumping up and down and screaming.”

The Premier Girls Fastpitch National Championships are held annually in Huntington Beach and feature hundreds of the best travel softball teams in the country featuring the best talent from across the country. To test herself against some elite talent and come out on the other side relatively unscathed was a huge boon to her confidence.

Now, McDaniel is hoping her travel ball success translates over to her high school career. McDaniel is the only underclassman on LaGrange’s varsity team with the rest of the roster consisting of 13 seniors and three juniors. It makes for an interesting dynamic at practice and in the dugout.

“I love playing with a bunch of seniors because everybody loves me,” McDaniel said. “Everybody on the team treats me like a little sister, but when we face other teams people underestimate me.”

At the National Championship in California, McDaniel was playing in the 14u tournament. Now, she will be playing against high school girls who are 16,17 and 18 years old. She believes playing in these large-scale tournaments helps prepare her for going against older girls in the high school ranks.

“They play at a really high level, so this helped me get ready for the same type of competition,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel is LaGrange’s no. 3 pitcher already as a freshman. It will be a season of learning and experience. With the top two pitchers on the roster being seniors, McDaniel will be climbing up the depth chart quickly. The freshman is already a fearsome, hard-throwing right-hander and she is only going to get even better over the next few years. 

LaGrange is 1-0 to start the season, but McDaniel has yet to make her varsity debut. With games on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday this week, the Grangers will likely get to see their freshman phenom make her varsity breakthrough.