Lawrence High School senior and softball player Sophie Taylor, left, shows her softball teammates a photo display of her softball career during her signing day. Taylor signed a letter of intent to play softball at the University of Northern Colorado. With Taylor from left are Maria Urban, Sami Mills, Megan Williams and Rhiannon Emerson.

One day about 10 and a half years ago, Lawrence High senior softball player Sophie Taylor was playing catch with her father, Kyle Taylor, in her grandparents’ backyard when she decided to set forth on a journey.

“I remember this just like it was yesterday that she was looking at me and I was looking at her and she says, ‘Dad, I’m going to play softball in college,'” Kyle said.

After working with multiple coaches for countless hours to improve on different facets of the game, Sophie reached her destination more than a decade later, as she signed her national letter of intent to play softball at the University of Northern Colorado on Wednesday in the LHS library.

“There were a lot of bumps in the road. I really wouldn’t have gotten to this point without my coaches,” Sophie said. “I remember telling my mom that I wanted to play at Northern Colorado and she kind of laughed at me because it is (NCAA Division I) and not many girls go D1 around here, so it’s a big deal. But I worked hard, and I put myself in positions to succeed, and I’m here now.”

Lawrence High School senior and softball player Sophie Taylor, left, shows her softball teammates a photo display of her softball career during her signing day. Taylor signed a letter of intent to play softball at the University of Northern Colorado. With Taylor from left are Maria Urban, Sami Mills, Megan Williams and Rhiannon Emerson.

While the work to get to this point has been hard for Sophie, the decision on where to play collegiately was easy because of Bears head coach Shana Easley and her staff.

“When I first met them and they started recruiting me, they were just switching colleges, and they weren’t allowed to tell me,” Sophie said. “So really it had nothing to do with the college itself at first, it was the coaches. I went on a visit in eighth grade, and I loved it.”

The LHS shortstop batted .580 with five home runs, six triples, 40 hits and 29 runs scored to earn first-team all-state honors in her junior campaign.

With LHS coach Joe Dee Tarbutton and several club coaches who have mentored Sophie on hand for the signing, they all shared aspects of the game where they have seen the Northern Colorado signee grow. And while Sophie gave thanks to her coaches, she has given back to them as well.

“Soph made me stop chewing tobacco,” Dave Meyer, who coached Sophie with the Kansas City Zephyrs, said. “For one, it became expense because I’d carry my chewing tobacco with me and hide it at the games. She would start stealing it from me, but then I caught on and carried an extra can anyway so when she took mine, I had one. Kyle was telling me that he got into her bag one day and was really concerned because she had cans of chewing tobacco. She sent me a picture one day of my chewing tobacco, and on the back of it it talks about cancer and all of the different things like that, and she said, ‘you know how ugly you’re going to be if you have this?'”

Meyer has not dabbled with chewing tobacco for “two to three years now” because of Sophie’s persistence in telling him to stop. It’s the same persistence at practice, along with being an all-state player that made it a no-brainer for Tarbutton to select Sophie as a captain for her senior season.

“She has a keen eye for what can help other players get better,” Tarbutton said. “She’s not like, ‘I’m better than you are, but here’s what we can do.'”