2025-06-04Panthers' Prendergast WAC Player of Year
Prendergast Dominated WAC batters to earn POY honorsWhen the 2025 softball season was just getting started back in late March, the pitching duties for the Great Bend Lady Panthers was going to be divided between Chayla Prendergast and Braelyn Turner.At least that was the plan until Turner suffered an injury that limited her to just 15 innings this season. The other backup pitcher, Alyssa McCauley, ended up throwing just 33.1 innings.That left the bulk of innings to Prendergast and she responded with 121.2 innings to finish the year with a 15-3 record, a 2.99 earned-run-average and 123 strikeouts.She earned WAC Player of the Year honors in a vote of the conference’s coaches where a coach cannot vote for their own player.Prendergast describes herself as an efficient pitcher, translating that into staying ahead of the batters in the count — 0-1, 1-2 — not giving up a lot of walks.“I just like to stay ahead in the count so I can throw the pitch that I want,” Prendergast said. “A lot of what pitch I use depends on the batter and their style. I’ll use pitches that have a lot of movement.”Prendergast uses a combination of six different pitches — change-up, drop, curve, screwball, rise and fastball. “The drop is my favorite,” Prendergast said. “This year, I gave more focus to my change-up because it’s such a hard motion to perfect. You still have to keep your motion fast so you can fool people.”Prendergast was dominant in WAC games (8-0, with 56 strikeouts in 49 innings to lower her ERA to 1.57.“My rise ball is my newest pitch that I learned last summer at camp,” Prendergast said. “I use it more against the big swingers. It’s a difficult pitch for me to learn and I’m still a little rough with it, but it got better.”The variety of pitches in her repertoire allowed her to keep hitters off balance.“I threw the curve a lot this year and I think I’ve got that mastered,” Prendergast said. “I like to use it on the corners both to right and left-handed batters.”Prendergast proved she was just more than an outstanding pitcher when she came to the plate. She finished this season with a .310 batting average with 2 home runs and 14 RBIs.“My freshman year, I was just so nervous at the plate,” Prendergast said. “This year, I had more fun with it and gained confidence.”Minton agreed.“She worked hard on her hitting and it showed,” Minton said of Prendergast. “She’s like the other girls in that she wants to continue to get better. She works so hard in all aspects of the game.”