Pawnee's future in good hands with sophomore Ava Rodriguez-Mansholt
She doesn’t like to hog attention from teammates, preferring the spotlight to shine on others, so don’t call her the next A-Rod, please. However, the statistics Ava Rodriguez-Mansholt has put up this season for the Pawnee softball team demand attention.
Entering last week, Mansholt was hitting .490 for 11-5 Pawnee, with an on-base percentage of .576, an on-base plus slugging percentage of 1.556, and a slugging percentage of .980. Through Tuesday, she was 24-for-49, with five homers, five doubles, two triples, and 29 RBI. She’s been a vacuum cleaner at shortstop, with a fielding percentage of more than 90 percent.
Oh, and she’s only a sophomore.
“I would say she has a great chance to be the best softball player in Pawnee history,” Pawnee coach Kenzie Johnson said. “But she’s a phenomenal team player. She’s very humble about herself. You’ll never hear her boasting about herself. But she’s a stud.”
Mansholt comes from an athletic family. Her older sister, Maya, was a standout catcher who graduated from Pawnee High School last year. Her father, Edwin, played minor-league baseball in his native Puerto Rico and was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 77th round of the 1996 Major League amateur draft.
“Everyone always says ‘Don’t you wish you had a boy?’, and I tell them ‘Why would I want that with two girls already that are better than them?’” said Edwin Rodriguez, an assistant coach on the team.
What does Ava Rodriguez-Mansholt think of all this fuss about her, with her name in the paper a lot and whispers of possible all-state selection?
“Well, I don’t really look at my stats. I maybe look at the end of the season. The only important stat I care about is the won-loss record,” she said.
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Mansholt has a big, powerful right-handed swing and a strong throwing arm. She also excelled for the Pawnee basketball and volleyball teams. In the summer, she plays for the Illinois Lady Force, which has won multiple NFA fastpitch 18-and-under national championships. The team is composed mostly of 18-year-olds, but Mansholt already can compete with them as a 16-year-old.
“She really holds her own against older players,” said Johnson, who was an all-conference softball player at Buffalo Tri-City. “I’m super pumped to think what she’ll be like as a junior and senior. She’s already one of our captains now.”
Mansholt's underclassman status probably explains why, Johnson said, she’s been hesitant to say too much to upperclassmen on the team, for fear of speaking out of place. However, there is only one senior and one junior in the Pawnee starting lineup. It’s a young team with a bright future, with Mansholt likely to only get better.
College softball is a ways off, but Mansholt admits she’s thought about it. There have been entreaties from bigger high schools closer to Springfield about moving and playing there, but Mansholt says she loves living in Pawnee. She is a member of the National Honor Society and is thinking about a career involving science and engineering. Her favorite things?
“My family, and I love hanging out with my friends,” Mansholt said. “I think I’m a pretty bubbly person. With sports, I was always trying just to be as good as my sister, so I think that has made me better.”
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When the game is on, however, she’s intense.
“She’s very tough on herself,” Johnson said. “And her dad is pretty hard on her as a coach, but that’s what she wants.”
Said Edwin Rodriguez, whose baseball career was cut short by injury after moving to the U.S. to play junior college ball in Kansas: “Ava is very good, but she’s like any other player; you have to keep working even harder, always. But she’s a very hard worker and doesn’t like to be thought of as any different than a teammate.”
If she keeps putting up the gaudy numbers of the present into the future, the spotlight on Mahsholt figures to only get brighter.
Adrian Dater is a freelance writer for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached through the sports department at sports@sj-r.com.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Ava Rodriguez-Mansholt never stops working for Pawnee softball
