No. Burlington’s Archer headed to Cal-Berkeley
As she weighed her multitude of collegiate options, Northern Burlington High School senior pitcher Haylei Archer had two preferences on her mind all along.
One was to pitch in a bigtime conference and the other was to go west.
Enter the University of California-Berkeley, which jumped in late in the game and officially became Archer’s choice when she told the Pac-12 school she has accepted its offer on Monday.
“It was a combination of things,” said Archer. “I just love their coaches, I wanted to pitch in a power conference and I wanted to go to the West Coast. I just think the West Coach fits my personality.”
For those not familiar with Archer, she’s an extremely hard-thrower who was named to The Trentonian’s All-Area team in her first three years with the Greyhounds. She throws so hard, in fact, she was already on the radar of college coaches as a freshman. From there, it was just a matter of making a choice.
“I was seriously considering Stanford, Washington and Texas A&M,” she said. “But in the end it came down to Cal and Minnesota.”
Cal came into the picture when it added Boston College University’s pitching coach to its staff. She was already familiar with Archer and when she saw Archer had not yet committed, she went to see her pitch at the PGF Nationals in late July in California.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“Cal clocked at me 69 (mph) at the nationals and invited me for a visit,” said Archer. “I visited the school two weeks ago. I’m super excited. It’s a beautiful school in a great location.”
No one who has ever been on the Cal campus or in the Berkeley area would argue with that last statement. And what’s interesting is Archer is actually the third local standout to end up at Cal.
One was New Egypt’s superlative shortstop Shannon Houston. The other was Steinert catcher Julie Meyer, who is now a coach at Hofstra University.
The way in which Meyer and now Archer were landed by Cal is remarkabley similar. Following her junior year in high school, Meyer also went to a tournament in California and when the Bear coaches saw her hit five homers in a weekend a scholarship offer was soon forthcoming.
Houston and Meyer both helped lead their high school teams to state championships as seniors. Before heading off to Cal, Archer will now attempt to do the same for a veteran Northern Burlington team that projects as one of the true heavyweights in the state.