• Kayla Reed is joined by teammates and friends at her college signing.

Last summer Munford senior softball player Kayla Reed as looking around on line and noticed there was a softball camp coming up at Bethel University.

“I’d already been to a lot of camps,” Reed said. “I saw there was one at Bethel so I told my mom, ‘Hey, let’s go to that.'”

They made the trip and the rest is history.

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In front of a large group of friends, family and teammates last Thursday afternoon Reed signed a softball scholarship with Bethel.

“I just feel in love with it,” Reed said about her experience at the camp. “It was just perfect.”

Bethel head coach John Weeks, who attended Thursday’s signing, said he likes her bat control, infield play and some intangibles that numbers don’t gauge.

“She’s bring a little bit of a swagger and an attitude to the team, something I’m really looking forward to,” Weeks said. “She’s got something a lot of coaches would call a competitive greatness. You can just see it in her play.”

“She has a really, really good drive about her,” said Munford head coach Glenn Goulder. “A lot of times she’s one of the last ones to leave practice. Then she goes home and her and her dad (Tony Reed, who was an assistant coach at Munford the last three years) practice after that. She’s got the worth ethic that it takes to be successful.”

Reed, who has been a starter since she was a freshman while pitching and playing shortstop primarily, has put up some impressive numbers during her career. She was named all-district the past three seasons and appeared on The Leader’s Top 10 High School Softball players list. Reed has a career .484 batting average and an on-base percentage of .525 with 129 hits, 43 RBIs, 36 doubles, 14 triples and 10 homers.

Her sister, Ashley Reed, was a standout player at Munford who played at Southwest Tennessee Community College.

“When I was six years old, I went with my sister to a Kentucky camp,” Reed said. “I said, ‘You know what, I’m playing college ball.'”

Twelve years later, that youthful proclamation has become a reality.

Jeff Ireland
Author: Jeff Ireland