Paris Russell signs with Brewton-Parker’s softball team
Paris Russell is fast. At bat she connects and hits hard. And at third base she catches a ton of balls and shuts down the other teams’ short game. Her travel ball team calls her P-money because she’s so reliable.
But if you ask her why or how she’s so good, she will smile, shrug and tell you that she just loves to play softball.
That love and all the talent, dedication, experience and hard work that comes with it earned this Jefferson County High School senior a scholarship to play ball for Brewton-Parker College’s Lady Barons this fall.
A four-year starter, Russell played in over 112 high school softball games. She has a lifetime batting average of .407, an on-base percentage of .547, a slugging percentage of .623, 117 stolen bases, scored 104 runs, collected 132 RBIs, hit 36 doubles, 16 triples and five home runs.
“There couldn’t be a more deserving kid,” said her high school Coach Jim Borum. “Offensively, she meant a lot to us, but defensively, she was stellar.”
Russell started at short stop her freshman year and played there until Borum moved her to third base her junior year.
“I guess I was a little hurt getting moved to third. Short stop is the captain of the infield, but it did feel more natural playing third,” she said. “At short stop you have time to react. At third the ball comes so fast, you don’t have time to think. You either catch it or you miss it. I did better with that.”
Borum said that everyone knows how important the short stop position, but particularly in softball third base, he calls that his hero position.
"Because you can play a short game in softball, that third baseman becomes real important,” Borum said. “You’ve got to take the short game away from them. Forcing them to play long-ball you have a better chance of getting them out. Everybody’s got to do their job, but third base has got to be a hero.”
Michael Brown, Russell’s travel ball coach, said that he is really going to miss her next season, especially at third base.
“To play third base you have to be tough, period. You get a lot of shots over there and where we go, we play a lot of girls who can hit those shots. She takes them. She’s fast as lightning, that’s why she’s there. By the time they square to bunt she’s almost shaking hands with them,” Brown said.
Russell was a part of the Warrior softball team that won 62 games and played in the second round of the state playoffs, the farthest in school history. Without her, Borum said, they never would have hit those numbers.
She started playing recreation league ball at 8-years-old at Sweetwater Park in Thomson. Her love for it was immediate.
“I just loved it,” she said. “I made lots of friends. I liked watching college softball on TV. I wanted to be like them. They were people I looked up to. Their intensity...the cheering and excitement.”
She wanted it all.
She was 12 or 13 when she started playing travel ball.
“I wanted to get better and at travel ball I wasn’t just competing against other teams, I was competing against my own teammates for a spot on the field,” Russell said.
In 2022 she was named captain of her high school team and Borum said that she was everything you need in a captain.
“She’s not a rah-rah type person, but she takes care of business,” he said. “If she had to speak up and be a little tough on players she would. She didn’t do it in meanness, but did it to make the team better. She was a coach on the field.”
Borum was impressed by her knowledge of the game and said that while she is fast, it is her wits that make her such so deadly running the bases.
"I give signs for steal or take, but she’s one of the few girls I’ve ever given the sign to read for herself what she needs to do,” Borum said. “She’s looking for the ball. She reads the play and I trusted her like that. She knows how to slide, how to come in and on which side of the base and then pops up ready to go. She has an instinct for it and she steals incredible bases. Even with a good catcher behind the plate, she steals bases that matter.”
Throughout this past season, Russell said she and Borum worked together sharing ideas on how best to prepare for certain games.
“We struggled with hitting this year and so the whole season we were moving the batting order around. Me and Coach Borum would call each other and talk about it,” Russell said. “During JV games he would let me coach first base and I got to thinking that is something I might want to do, to coach. I feel like it helps you to have a relationship with players and I was able to talk with them. And even if I can’t play softball for the rest of my life, I can always come back and contribute.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Paris Russell signs with Brewton-Parker’s softball team
