Talented teenager

This story was originally published on Locker Room at Newsroom.co.nz, and is republished with permission.

Caitlyn Lewin has a tattoo on her left forearm with the four characters in kanji denoting earth, wind, water and fire.

The 17-year-old from Lower Hutt was inspired by the movie, Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the avatar attempts to control the four elements.

‘‘I want to be good at everything I do,’’ Lewin says, explaining the tattoo. ‘‘I like the idea of learning everything and being good at everything.’’

She’s already on her way in softball, having played for the White Sox and national age grade teams, and she will be one of the leaders in the New Zealand under-18 team at the world championships in Peru in August.

After that she will head to Florida’s Chipola College on a three-year scholarship that will see her follow in her older sister Mikayla’s footsteps.

It is, she says, a life changing opportunity as the costs of an education in New Zealand are beyond her.

‘‘You can’t get better than a free education and top softball. But I know I have to do well because if you don’t pass, you don’t play,’’ says Lewin, who left Hutt Valley High School last year to concentrate on her softball career.

‘‘And I know that if I didn’t play softball, I wouldn’t be going to university in New Zealand.’’

Lewin will be one of four Hutt Valley softballers at colleges in the United States, joining sister Mikayla, Pallas Potter and Denver Shaw-tait (whose mother, Kiri, and grandmother, Naomi Shaw, are softballing royalty).

These young women are following White Sox captain Lara Andrews, who has two degrees from the University of Delaware and is now finishing off her PHD – researching parental involvement in organised sport and how it affects children’s confidence.

Andrews came back to New Zealand preaching the pathway to academic and sporting success for Kiwi girls lay in the United States. She’s proud of the Hutt Valley girls who have followed her advice.

‘‘I barely graduated high