Photo courtesy of RU Athletics- Sarah Smith was a senior softball player for Radford University this season.
Smith is from Warner Robins, Ga., where she pitched for Houston County High School, coincidentally the high school of Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm.
Like all of Radford’s spring sports athletes, her 2020 season was wiped out by the coronavirus. As a junior in 2019, Smith threw 16.2 innings in eight appearances. She made eight starts and had three of her eight strikeouts for the season against Austin Peay on March 1.
Smith transferred to Radford after two seasons at South Georgia State College in Douglas, the state champions in 2018. She was named all-conference as a freshman and earned all-tournament team honors as a sophomore. She threw 108 strikeouts and had six saves at South Georgia.
At Houston County High Schools, she was named first-team all-county and first-team all-region twice and first-team all-state once. As a senior, she was honored as the 5A Pitcher of the Year and the 5A Georgia Dugout Player of the Year. She helped the Bears earn a sweet-16 appearance in the playoffs as a junior and an appearance in the elite eight as a senior.
Asked why she wanted to attend Radford, she said, “My dream was to play softball at the division one level. Radford made my dreams come true by giving me that opportunity.”
As to having her senior season of the sport she loves cut short, Smith admitted frankly to how much it hurt her. “This season being cut short felt like a bad dream; it just doesn’t seem or feel real,” she said. “My first thought was there is no way that this could be happening to us. This was our year to win it all. This team was something special, and when the season got cut short, I felt paralyzed, like I lost my purpose. Softball is the only reason I went to college in the first place, and I just can’t remember the last thing I did on my last game day as a Highlander. I was 600 miles from home and within six minutes of meeting my team I had found my second family.
Despite the disappointment of losing the season, Smith said RU has affected her for a lifetime.
“Radford has impacted my life so much in such a short period of time,” she said. “Radford brought me teammates that have turned into friends, and friends that have turned into family with memories that will last a life-time.”
Smith would tell future Highlanders, “Soak it all in. The people at Radford make the place; the place doesn’t make the people. Never take anything for granted because you blink and you are a senior about to graduate college and go into the real world. It feels like just yesterday you stepped on campus for the first time as a freshman in your dorm room.”
