Jaylee Englekes is the first four-year all-state player in Greenbrier softball history, and with the success of the Lady Panthers program in the past generation, that’s saying a lot.
Since 2008, the Lady Panthers have reached the Class 5A state semifinals eight times, won championships in 2010 and ’18 and finished runner-up in 2013 and ’16.
As a freshman, Englekes hit .578 to break Autumn Russell’s school record. Russell recently completed her career at the University of Arkansas.
As a senior, Englekes was Most Valuable Player of the Class 5A State Tournament.
“She’s a wonderful person and a great player,” Greenbrier coach Brian Butler said. “She pitched us to the finals against Vilonia her sophomore year. Her junior year, we were one pitch away from making it to the finals again.
“She’s been our workhorse on the mound, our go-to. She’s going to be sorely missed and hard to replace.”
As a senior, Englekes went 22-4 on the mound with a 2.08 ERA. She also batted .436 with 37 RBIs.
She is the River Valley & Ozark Edition Softball Player of the Year for 2018.
Englekes and Natalie Burns were the only Lady Panther seniors this spring. She said they changed the culture of the program, and it paid off.
“We wanted everyone to feel like this was their home, and everyone loved it,” she said.
That tweak seemed to pay dividends.
“This year, I feel like it wasn’t as stressful for us as it’s been in the past,” she said. “All of us are like family. If anyone had a problem, we were there for them.”
Englekes grew up in Greenbrier and started playing softball when she was about 4. She throws right-handed but bats left-handed.
“My left-handed hitting is not for slapping,” she said. “It’s for power.”
As a junior, she pitched 174 innings and went 13-7 with a 2.01 ERA, 118 strikeouts and 40 walks. Offensively, she batted .431 with 44 hits, 11 doubles, 7 home runs, 48 RBIs and 12 walks.
She started pitching at about age 10.
“I just always loved it, and I tried really hard,” she said of her sport. “I wanted to be good. I wanted to go somewhere.”
She will play next year for the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Englekes was a three-sport athlete — volleyball and basketball besides softball — before choosing to focus on volleyball and softball. She said she had another offer to play collegiate softball for Southeastern Louisiana, but she didn’t want to go so far away from home.
She’s playing this summer for Arkansas Magic, a travel team based in central Arkansas.
“Softball has given me a bunch of friends throughout high school, and just playing in general,” she said. “I’ve got a bunch of friends that I don’t know where I would’ve met them otherwise, and they’re like sisters to me now.”
The major strength to her game, she said, is hitting.
“I didn’t hit that many home runs, but I’m patient in getting ahead on the count,” she said.
A weakness, however, is a perfectionist streak.
A hard lesson came in the 5A-West District Tournament semifinals against Morrilton. Greenbrier had swept the conference round-robin, 14-0 — including wins over Morrilton, 14-4 and 4-0 — but the Lady Devil Dogs prevailed in the tournament, 7-5 — shocking the Lady Panthers.
“A girl hit a home run off of me, and I think it might’ve been her first one of the season,” Englekes remembered. “It was, ‘Oh my goodness; are you kidding me?’ Everyone came out with the big head, but we had a bunch of errors in the field.
“That was a big lesson.”
After that, the Lady Panthers didn’t lose again, including an 11-3 win over Morrilton in the semifinals of the Class 5A State Tournament.
“I guess it was for the better,” she said of the district-tournament loss that assured the Lady Panthers would be hungry for the state tournament.
Englekes said she hopes to become a doctor someday, so her UCA studies will focus on the sciences.