Bright. Funny. Persistent. Athletic. These are some of the words used by teammates to describe Jamesville-DeWitt High School senior Jenny Keeler, star pitcher and team captain of the J-DHS Girls’ Varsity Softball Team.

Keeler currently leads the pitchers in her league with a career 155 strikeouts. She has an ERA of .63 this season, and according to coach Phillip Deaugustine, she is also one of the best hitters with a .366 batting average. Last year, she became a Division I All-Star after leading the school’s team to second place at a championship in Canastota. She was named Player of the Game twice in the past three years by Oneida’s WMCR radio. To translate from softball talk into plain English, senior and teammate Christina Oaster says that Keeler pitches “amazingly.” “She’s always working,” said sophomore Lateja Bryant, one of Keeler’s teammates.

Another part of what contributes to her success as a softball player is her early exposure to the sport. “I started playing tee ball when I was four and I loved it,” said Keeler. She says that when she was about 7 years old, she started playing Little League Softball and was sometimes on two teams at once. She became passionate about pitching when she was in sixth grade. “In Little League, everyone was a pitcher but somehow I could throw fast and strike people out, so I decided to practice more,” said Keeler.

She says that she excelled on J-D Middle School’s Modified Softball Team because she really enjoyed her teammates and her coach. She then played junior varsity softball in eighth and ninth grade and jumped to varsity sophomore year.

Keeler plays softball year-round. All throughout the year, she plays on a team called the Red Storm and plays tournaments indoors during the winter. In the fall, she plays on the team her father put together last year called the Blue Crush. On this team she has the chance to play with her sister and give other young players more experience. She also plays on a team over the summer called the Syracuse Heat. She pitches for all three teams, which each consist of players from different schools in the Central New York area. She has made a lot of friends and plays against some of them during her school softball games.

“I’ve learned a bunch of different skills [from my other teams] that I use in games, so I have a lot more experiences than other pitchers in the league,” she said. But when it is time for J-DHS softball, she makes sure that it is her only team.

Keeler holds an incredible amount of respect for her teammates. “We’re really close this year and they’ve added on to my enjoyment of senior year,” she said.
Her teammates have an equal amount of appreciation for Keeler. “She’s the frickin’ pitcher! She’s the battery and the heart of the team,” said teammate Sarah Gianni, a senior. “She doesn’t get down on herself. When she doesn’t pitch well it makes her determined to do better,” she added.

Oaster said that Keeler handles pressure so well that it’s like there is none. “You can see her take a breath and take five seconds to set herself. Then, it’s on,” said Gianni.

All of her teammates and coaches would agree that her smile is what keeps the team going. “She’s nice to everybody. She’s always smiling, even when something goes wrong,” said junior and teammate Jayla Greene. “No matter the situation on the field, she has the same demeanor and comes off the field with a smile almost every inning,” said Coach Deaugustine. “She has an ability to have fun, no matter the situation,” said Gianni.

Beyond the boundaries of the softball field, Keeler takes pleasure in writing. “I write throughout the year because I love it,” she said. She is an active member of the Creative Writing Club, helping put together the literary magazine Rambunctious.

Keeler is also pursuing other passions. “I love singing and anything that involves music,” she said. Keeler is currently attempting to teach herself to play the guitar and the piano. “It’s somehow working,” she said.

Though Keeler is an exemplary and committed athlete, she still finds it difficult to juggle softball, school, and her social life. “It’s extremely hard,” she said. She emphasized that it is frustrating over the summer when she has practice and tournaments that last the whole weekend and so she misses out on fun times with her friends. However, she still has friends on the team. She added, “Softball is totally worth it.”

Bryant sums Keeler up by saying, “She loves the game so much.”

Next year, Keeler is planning on attending St. John Fisher College, where she will major in Early Childhood and Special Education. She will be a part of a program that is very service-oriented, but will continue to play softball. “I knew that I wanted to play softball there because that school is really into sports,” she said.

However, Keeler does not plan on playing softball beyond college “because there’s not really anywhere to go with it.” Instead, she hopes to become a softball coach in the future.