Texas Aces High School Highlights

Brazoria County: Where Texas Began | Sunday, June 10

All-Brazoria County softball squad named

By Joel Luna
The Facts

Published June 10, 2007

With so much success on the softball diamonds, selecting The Facts’ All-Brazoria County softball team was quite a challenge.

With seven county teams making the postseason, the task was put before the newspaper’s sports staff and the schools’ head coaches to pick the best of the best.

Pearland’s Rhiannon Kliesing earned the top honor, being named most valuable player for the season. The pitcher had a stellar four-year career with the Lady Oilers.

“I learned a lot over the four years with my coaches and teammates helping me all the time,” Kliesing said. “They were a great support system for me and that had a lot to do with my success there.”

Her next stop is Texas A&M University.

Kliesing finished her high school career with a 24-4 mark, including 318 strikeouts and a .011 ERA. <actually 0.11 very early in the season, 0.54 at the end>

Kliesing’s arm was not the only thing that made her a threat. With a .439 batting average, Kliesing had 54 hits and 34 RBI to lead Pearland.

The Lady Oilers lost to Alvin in the playoffs.

“I had a goal of making it to state this year, but we fell short,” Kliesing said. “We still had a good run and lots of memories along the way. There were many things that helped me on the mound, but one of them was reading passages from a book called “Mind Gym” before every game. It helped with my mental aspect of the game. I always tried staying positive, especially in pressure situations.”

Kliesing said she will play summer select softball for a team called the Aces before arriving at Texas A&M.

The offensive player of the year nod goes to Brazoswood’s Kristen Kappler, while the defensive player of the year honor belongs to Angleton’s Ashley Silva. Danbury’s Bailey Vrazel and Alvin’s Jessica Savage share the newcomer of they year accolade, while Sweeny’s Allie Chenault is the freshman of the year.

Coach of the year is Alvin’s Carla Newsom.

In her final year with the Lady Bucs, Kappler had a .356 batting average and drove in 35 runs to lead Brazoswood. She also slugged six homers over the fence and finished with a .596 on-base percentage.

“I’ve been wanting this award since my freshman year,” Kappler said. “And I’ve gotten better since then until finally I got it.”

Kappler helped lead the Lady Bucs to the state semifinals in 2006. Her next stop is the University of Texas at San Antonio to play for the Lady Roadrunners.

Silva stood her ground at first base for Angleton for the last four seasons.

“It’s been an amazing four years at Angleton,” Silva said. “My freshman year was the best because everything went my way that year. I hit good and was moved up to varsity right after that. But it just got better each year, and it never ceases to amaze me how far we traveled in the playoffs.”

Silva also is moving on to play college ball.

“This is not the end of my career because I will get to play at Howard Payne,” Silva said. “I can’t wait to get there.”

Newcomer Savage, a sophomore, was Alvin’s leadoff hitter and hit .399 with 22 RBI. She also had 15 stolen bases. Savage said her role as leadoff hitter took some time to learn.

“I wasn’t the leadoff hitter at the beginning of the year, but I worked hard and earned it,” Savage said. “My hitting just got better with more swings that I took. But I do have to work on my defense at second base.”

Freshman newcomer Vrazel played every position during the season except pitcher and first base. She hit at a .333 clip and had a .355 slugging average, .595 on base percentage, 34 stolen bases, 18 RBI, .955 fielding percentage and scored 33 runs.

“It was a fun year, but I still have room for improvement,” Vrazel said. “I’d show up and coach would say, ‘You are going to play here,’ and I just played.”

Freshman of the year Chenault showed up with a high-powered arm for Sweeny. In helping the Lady Bulldogs into the postseason, Chenault posted a 10-4 district record and accumulated 276 strikeouts while pitching six no-hitters. Her ERA was below 1.0 for the season.

“One of the things I learned this year was to be more mature on the mound and not show emotion,” Chenault said. “Batters can tell what you are thinking if you show emotion. I still need to work on my riseball and other pitches, and that is what I will do this summer.”

Chenault hit .333 for Sweeny and will play with the Texas Rage select team this summer.

Coach of the year Newsome led Alvin to a 32-9 record and a shared title in District 24-5A. Alvin, Brazoswood and Pearland finished in a three-way tie atop the district.

On the first-team all-county squad are pitchers Cami Newsome (Columbia) and Amber Anderson (Alvin); catcher Kelsea Orsak (Pearland); infielders Gabby Banda (Angleton), Nikki Mack (Brazoswood), Megan Coranado (Pearland), Shelby Poff (Columbia) and Alexis Joseph (Alvin); and outfielders Alyssa Lukasheay (Danbury), Lauren Sanders (Angleton), Meagan Bailey (Brazoswood) and Tiffany Galleti (Alvin). First-team utility player is Columbia’s Bailey Watts, while the designated hitter honor belongs to Brazoswood’s Taryn Broussard.

Second-team all-county honorees are Alvin’s Kelsi Kettler; Angleton’s Baylea Wagner, Kim Damian and Chelsea Bryson; Brazosport’s Ashley Hobbs; Brazoswood’s Brittanie Garay and Lana Jo Hairston; Danbury’s Macy Mager; Sweeny’s Jalyn Erwin, Hillary Dye and My’Neatric Woodard; and Pearland’s Lindsey Langner, Tiffany Stritz and Jenna Guse.

Honorable mention honors belong to Brazoswood’s Leslie Johnson and Katie McGregor; Pearland’s Jaclyn Bechtle and Kesha Hagerman; Columbia’s Natalie Locke, Kim Garcia and Kayla Avirett; Alvin’s Megan Powell and Megan Gomez; Brazosport’s Alex Gonzalez; Angleton’s Michelle Gregory, Amy Rhodes and Krystal Plummer; and Sweeny’s Mercedes Salazar and Katy Scarborough.