Texas Aces High School Highlights

June 18, 2007
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Rhiannon Kliesing
Special to StudentSportsSoftball.com

Note: after a junior season in which she was honored as an EA SPORTS All-American, Rhiannon Kliesing had a similarly strong year this season as a senior.

The Texas A&M signee compiled a 24-4 record with a 0.53 ERA against top teams such as Brazoswood and Alvin and in 182 innings had 318 strikeouts with 14 shutouts. She also had 13 one-hitters and two no-hitters… in addition, she allowed only 24 walks all season.

Equally talented at the plate, the Texas A&M signee hit .439 with 36 RBIs.

For her career, the Texan was 74-18 with a 0.45 ERA (only 39 earned runs in 599 innings) with 40 shutouts and 832 strikeouts and at the plate averaged .387.

Hey everyone! It's Rhi!

Let's see, the last time I wrote we had just won our first playoff game again Fort Bend Austin and were excited about moving on to the next round.

The next week, we played a best-of-3 series against Kingwood. We won the first 2 games, easily it seemed like. We played well both games. I guess when you play well and have fun winning is pretty easy.

Our next opponent was one of our district rivals, Alvin, who we beat twice during the regular season and lost once to. We were fired up to play the best-of-3 series against them. The first game, we came out ready to play. We hit the ball hard and had solid defense, and we beat them 4-0.

I guess we were a little too over-confident the next night, because we lost 2 games in a row and ended our season.

The loss shocked a lot of people, especially us. We were predicted to be at the state tournament this year, and we expected ourselves to be there, too. But one bad night changed all of that.

It's sad knowing that my career at Pearland High School is over and that the season didn't end the way we wanted it to, but that doesn't take away from the incredible season we had and the memories and friendships we made.

It's amazing how much I've matured and improved since my freshman year, and I have my high school coaches to thank for that. None of my success, or the team's success, would have been possible without them. They truly are great coaches with a passion for the game of softball, and I'm glad they have shared that passion with me the past 4 years. I also have them to thank for most of the awards I've gotten throughout high school.

A lot of great athletes are qualified for and deserve different awards, but it's the coaches that have to nominate them for awards in hopes that they get picked. My coaches definitely did a great job of that, and I really appreciate it. I'm going to miss them, but I know they will be supporting me in my career at Texas A&M.



	Rhiannon pictured with Pearland associate head coach Michele Hyden (left) and head coach Laneigh Clark (right) receiving one of her numerous awards.

My coaches nominated me for the Houston Athletic Committee Softball Scholar Athlete award, and I ended up being one of 4 female finalists. A banquet was held to announce the winner of every sport, male and female, and each finalist attended. I ended up winning the award for softball, and, once again, that could have never happened without the hard work and dedication of my coaches. They also nominated me for the All-Star team, and I was selected to be a member of that as well.

I also have my parents to thank for a lot of my accomplishments. They support me every step of the way and never miss a game. We had our annual high school softball banquet in May, and not only was Coach Jo Evans our guest speaker, but my mom went above and beyond and arranged for 5 of the A&M cadets to attend and they brought Reveille!! It was so cool! I can't thank my parents enough for everything they do for me on and off the field.

Now that high school is over, I'm on to bigger and better things. My summer team, the Texas Aces Gold, has started up again, and we just qualified for gold nationals on our first try! We've never even qualified at all before, and this year we did it at the first qualifying tournament!


	Rhiannon with Texas A&M Head Coach Jo Evans (center), A&M Mascot Reveille, several cadets, and Kelsea Orsak (2008), also committed to A&M

There were 54 teams in the tournament, and we only had to win our first 5 games to be in the top 4 and qualify. Well, we lost our very first game to a team we should not have lost to. That meant we had to win 7 games in the loser's bracket to qualify. I guess we really wanted to qualify early this year and have a couple of weekends off because we won the next 7 games and beat a few high ranking teams. We did something that has never been done before in that tournament by qualifying after losing the first game. We were also the only Houston team in the tournament to qualify, so it was a very successful weekend for us.

Now we have the Colorado Fireworks tournament and white water rafting to look forward to, and I'm really excited about that.

I start a 6 week strength and conditioning camp on Monday, so I'll try to go to as much of that as possible, but that's hard to do when there is a week long softball tournament in the middle of it. Let's see, I've also started my summer work out for A&M which is going pretty well. It's not easy, but I'll get through it.

I guess I will write more after the Fireworks tournament and let ya'll know how we did!

Take care everyone!

-Rhi