“All my life I’ve been aiming to go to college for softball,” says Tonya Marks, junior. Marks has “been playing since [she] was 6 years old,” and Marks has been “on 3 travel teams” her “whole life, which travel anywhere in the U.S.” Marks dream when she “was younger was to play at a division 1 level of softball” and Marks feels she is “getting closer to that dream.”

     So far Marks has had “division 1, 2, and 3 schools interested” in having Marks on their team, including Towson University(D1), and NDMU(D3). Marks’ dream school is the University of Michigan due to her mother attending high school in Michigan, Marks “just loves the area, but they also have an amazing softball team and head coach(Carol Hutchins)” who is coaching her 37th season. According to the University of Michigan, Hutchins has  “a career record of 1,631-525-5 over her 37 total seasons as an NCAA head coach, Hutchins owns more wins than any other coach — in any division — in NCAA softball history.”

     Marks feels “very excited” but “nerve-racking at the same time” because she feels that she really needs to “make the right decision.” Marks says in order to help her and her teammates with their goals, her “travel coach has been taking [the] team to places of interests (places we want colleges to look at us.)” Mark’s team was planned to go to Vancouver, Canada “for a tournament, but due to Covid” the team “had to drop out and are now going to Alabama.”

     To train, Marks practices “every day of the week” when Marks isn’t on the field you can find her working out of helping “coach a 14u softball team in [her] travel organization.” Marks says her “technique is to never give up, even if you’re tired.” Marks states the technique “is to focus on form, even if you get tired your form must be perfect.” Marks feels that “one little lazy day could get you in a bad habit with playing.”

     Usually, Marks has “1-2 tournaments a month, so that about 5-7 games each tournament.” due to covid Marks team has not had as many tournaments. This summer, Marks has “10 tournaments: 4 being out of state.” One of the tournaments being in Alabama, Marks and her team will be “traveling there for a week-long tournament against teams from all over the U.S.” Marks says “ this is a harder tournament to play in” due to the fact that southerners “play softball year-round, so they have more playing time than” people up north. Marks team beat “the #1 team of texas” last year at Alabama. Marks plans to “be prepared and aggressive when [she] goes down and are going to come out with a win(fingers crossed)

     On the Educational side, to prepare herself, Marks “makes sure [her] GPA does not get low. A 3.5 GPA average is usually what [Marks] sits at.” This year Marks has been “trying to stop procrastinating and getting [her] work done ahead of time,” that way she does not fall behind and can still play sports. Marks is scheduled to take the SATs soon.