Ringgold’s Nayadley commits to ETSU
Ringgold’s Riley Nayadley has been enamored with East Tennessee State University for quite a while now and saw no reason to put off her decision any longer.
The Lady Tigers’ junior shortstop recently made a verbal commitment to continue her softball career with the Southern Conference Buccaneers, who are looking at her as a middle infielder at the next level.
“I’ve love that school and, honestly, I’ve wanted to go there for the last two or three years,” she explained. “The coaches are awesome and I just love everything about it.”
The two-sport standout — who is also one of the top basketball players for the Blue-and-white — earned the starting job as Ringgold’s shortstop at the beginning of her freshman season and has yet to let it go. She batted .346 in her rookie year with six doubles, one triple and one homerun before hitting .273 with 11 doubles, one triple, three homeruns and 24 RBIS as a sophomore.
She was named to the Catoosa-walker second team in each of the past two seasons. This season, however, she is pushing for Player of the Year honors as she is hitting a robust .506 with eight doubles, one triple and two homeruns. She has 45 total hits thus far to go with 29 runs scored and 27 RBIS for the top-ranked Lady Tigers.
“(ETSU) is going to get somebody that’s going to compete every day on the field,” Ringgold head coach Daniel Hackett said. “She always wants to stay after and get better. She always wants to work on her hitting and she always wants to work on her defense. Plus, she’s such a joy to be around.
“You can see so much growth in her from last year to this year. I’d say one of the things that really shows is the way she just waits on her pitch. She is battling even harder at the plate than ever before. She’s always been a phenomenal hitter for us, but she just continues to get better and I expect that same type of growth going into next year.”