Halfway junior Josie Choate is batting .469 and her on base percentage is .539 It’s not only her approach in the batter’s box that sticks out on gamedays. Rather, it’s the juniors’ voice that booms from the dugout.
“My favorite chant is the safe in your face,” Josie said while giggling. “If they dive back into first we do ‘safe in your face’”.
While the cheers from the dugout can get her team going, it’s the catcher’s voice on the field that resonates the most with her teammates.
“She knows exactly how far she can push them to get what our team needs out of it,” said Halfway Head Softball Coach Jody Sharp.
“If I tell them, ‘hey get your head up’ they do, they listen,” Josie said. “It’s cool being a leader and them following.”
Sharp believes Josie’s vocal leadership is the driving factor behind Halfway’s wins this softball season. Even the reason the Cardinals are reaching the program’s first final four.
“The team has now become confident in her, so if you are going to be a team leader, you’ve got to have the loudest voice and you’ve got to be the one who starts all those things and she does a great job of that,” Sharp said.
Halfway will go as far as Josie will take them. She’s got their back and they have hers.
“They’re my family,” Josie said choked up. “There’s nothing else to it. I love all those girls like they are my own.”
And she is a player any coach would want back behind the plate.
