Madi Schreyer no secret anymore | Fastpitch Softball

The girl next door just might be the Next Big Thing in high-school softball.

You might not recognize the name, but 15-year-old Madi Schreyer from Northshore Junior High in Bothell, who will pitch this spring as a freshman for Woodinville, is already well known to every coach in the Pac-10 and many others nationwide.

It's easy to get noticed when you're a 5-foot-11 right-hander not yet old enough to hold a driver's license but able to throw five pitches (curve, rise, drop, fastball and screwball) in the low 60s (miles per hour). An elite college pitcher such as Washington's Danielle Lawrie routinely hits the high 60s.

Schreyer's pitches not only have velocity, but control and movement, too. Eve Gaw, a former UW standout and Schreyer's personal pitching coach the past two years, says her prize pupil is a surefire Division I college talent.

"Absolutely," said Gaw, who threw four no-hitters during her UW career (1995-98). "She's really just starting to learn how to pitch. When she learns how to use her legs a little bit more and be more efficient in her motion, that speed is going to go way up. She's just going to get better and better."

Schreyer already plays on the region's premier traveling summer club, the Washington Ladyhawks. Last year, at 14, she was the only player under 17 on the club's 18U Gold roster.

"That's very rare," said Ladyhawks assistant coach Jeff Jones. "You see that now and then in California and Arizona, but not in the Northwest.

"She has the physical and emotional maturity of an older player," Jones said. "You wouldn't know her age by looking at her except maybe for that baby face. But she's a fierce competitor. Everything she throws moves. And if she misses with her pitches, she keeps them down, so she gets a lot of ground balls and keeps the ball in the park."

Because her parents are Canadian, she was invited to train with the Canadian junior national team this summer. She already had made a commitment to the Ladyhawks, so she has postponed that opportunity until 2011.

"She's so well-grounded and levelheaded," Jones said. "She's one of those kids who comes along every blue moon."

Gaw agrees.

"She's such a hard worker," she said. "I really haven't seen anyone with her level of skills at such a young age. What's impresses me the most is that she has so much room to grow."

Schreyer has a too-good-to-be-true profile. The lifetime straight-A student takes part in community service projects and baby-sits two younger siblings.

"She handles pressure well and gets her work done," said her dad, Darrell Schreyer, a chiropractor who gives Madi a daily adjustment and frequently has her treated by a massage therapist in his office. "She's very mature for her age. Otherwise we probably would have held her back from some of these opportunities for another year."

Madi Schreyer says she is not the product of perfection-obsessed parents. Her mom and dad, both former college athletes, allow her to chart her own course.

"My parents support me, give me confidence and make me happy," she said. "We spend a lot of time together as a family, and I think that's very important for having a healthy family relationship like ours."

Schreyer is simply a self-starter.

"I manage my time very well," she said. "I like to get things done. I don't like to procrastinate. Grades are very important to me. My parents expect it, kind of, but they don't pressure me to do it. I just kind of do it on my own."

Schreyer took up slowpitch softball at age 12 for fun, then attended her first Husky softball camp and got serious about the sport.

"The other girls in slowpitch didn't try as hard," she said. "I wanted to compete."

She excelled so quickly that her dad quit catching for his daughter a year ago when she broke his toe with one of her drop balls — for a second time.

"That was the end of that," Darrell Schreyer said.

She also loves to swing the stick. Before a tournament in Denver last summer, her dad promised he would get her braces if she hit a home run. Schreyer ripped a grand slam.

She likes doing teenage things and is intrigued by photography and journalism as possible career options. She'll have her choice of where to study in college.

"I have a top five," she said. "But I have no clue where I want to go. It depends what I want to do later in life and where I want to play ball. I never dreamed of being looked at by so many colleges. It's surprising, but very cool."