Gatorade Award recipient Alyssa Twomey can do it all — including making Pilgrim High School athletics and softball history
The most important position on the softball field is pitcher. When you’ve got a good one, that’s only going to help a team win games.
When you’ve got a great one who also can mash at the plate, it’s going to make your high school a state title contender.
That’s exactly what Pilgrim High School has in Alyssa Twomey. The junior sparkled in her varsity debut last spring and earned All-State honors, then took her game to the next level this spring. Twomey earned her first accolades of the season on Thursday as she was named the 2021-22 Gatorade Rhode Island Softball Player of the Year and made school history in the process.
Twomey is the first girl to earn Gatorade honors in any sport in Pilgrim's history. She’s only the second athlete in Pilgrim's history to be honored by Gatorade after Sean Flynn won Track Athlete of the Year honors for the 1994-95 school year.
Her numbers this spring have been staggering. Heading into the winners bracket semifinal game against Coventry, Twomey had thrown 102.2 innings, compiling a 0.55 earned run average, 168 strikeouts and only 22 walks all season, good for a 13-3 record.
Twomey is more than a pitcher. She’s the Patriots’ most feared hitter, batting .373 with a .949 slugging percentage, seven home runs and 23 RBI.
Her excellence extends to the classroom, where she’s maintained a weighted 4.47 GPA. She has committed verbally to play softball at Providence College.
Twomey is the first junior softball player to be honored by Gatorade since North Kingstown’s Kiara Oliver won the first of her back-to-back awards in 2015-16. Since Gatorade starting naming its Player of the Year in 1997-98, Twomey is the ninth underclassman to earn the award. Pitchers have earned the award 21 times.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Pilgrim's Alyssa Twomey named Gatorade RI Softball Player of the Year
