The No. 1 junior softball player in America is going to the ACC. She’s from Charlotte
The best high school softball player in the United States might just be playing in Mecklenburg County.
As she officially begins her junior year this week, Charlotte Christian’s Anna Hinde already has a career’s worth of accomplishments:
▪ She’s a three-time first-team All-American (Hinde started playing on the high school varsity in eighth grade).
▪ She is ranked No. 1 nationally in the class of 2025 by Perfect Game softball and Legends & Legacy Softball.
▪ She has led her team to three straight N.C Independent Schools’ state championship finals, winning two.
▪ And Hinde, 17, owns a 1,210 SAT score, a 4.356 GPA and has committed to softball power Florida State, which has 19 ACC titles and an NCAA national crown.
“I’m truly humbled and honored,” Hinde said of her national ranking. “It was a great thing to see. There’s so many great players in the ‘25 class. So it’s truly an honor (to be ranked first). I feel like now there’s more pressure on me in certain situations, because being the No. 1 player, everyone has eyes focused on you. You want to make sure you live up to the expectations, but stay within yourself. So I feel like that’s a huge focus right now.”
Private schools, like Charlotte Christian, began spring sports practice on Monday, and North Carolina’s public schools start today for sports like baseball, girls’ soccer and track.
At Charlotte Christian, the Knights, and their star player, have the same goal they always have: win state.
Since Hinde started playing varsity softball in eighth grade, the Knights are 52-10 and have the two state titles.
The goal this year? Win a third.
“We lost six seniors,” said Hinde, who plays third base and catcher, “but we have a huge freshman class coming in. We’ll rebuild and be really good this season. It’s a real team effort. I don’t know if I can guarantee (a title), but we’ll work hard to get there.”
Hinde’s father, Kevin, is the Knights’ coach. He coached American Legion and rec baseball for more than a decade in the area, and played in high school in Union County at Piedmont. He was a preferred walk-on at Clemson.
He introduced his daughter to a lot of sports growing up, but said it didn’t take long to know that she was gifted at softball.
“As soon as she started playing it,” Kevin Hinde said, “she wanted to practice every single day. She’d always say, ‘Daddy, let’s go to the field.’ And she would hit and field some. Days I come from work and she’s ready to go. I’m like, ‘Let me get in the door.’”
Anna Hinde played with older girls a lot growing up, her father said, and when she got to high school ball in eighth grade, she immediately made a big splash.
Hinde hit .606 with 13 home runs and 41 RBIs on a Christian team that finished 17-2.
As a freshman, Hinde hit .606 with 41 RBIs and 13 home runs and was named The Observer’s player of the year.
Last season, with teams trying to pitch around her, she still hit .509 with seven home runs and 26 RBIs, and she showed why she’s No. 1 nationally in her class by the Fastpitch Network for corner infielders.
Hinde had a nearly perfect 0.987 fielding average.
“I love softball,” she said. “It was the one sport I kept going back to and I said, I want to practice every day. I always felt like I was kind of a good athlete and softball came naturally. When I was on my transition from rec ball to travel ball, I was like, ‘I can pursue this,’ and in sixth grade, there was an article written about me in Extra Inning Softball.
“When I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this can become my reality.’”
And it has.
