For most college athletes, a record-setting freshman year is the pinnacle. For Washington’s Alexis DeBoer, it was just the opening act. Heading into her sophomore season, Kalen DeBoer’s daughter, who began learning softball as a six-year-old kindergartner, is getting the spotlight.

Three Washington players have been named to the list of Big Ten Players to Watch for the season, including Alexis DeBoer, Jadyn Glab, and Morgan Reimer. Alexis, a sophomore from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, started all 54 games last season. She won Big Ten Freshman of the Year while leading Washington in batting average (.358), hits (58), home runs (21), RBIs (55), and slugging percentage (.815)

She’s also landed on USA Softball’s Player of the Year Top 50 Watch List, while D1Softball and Softball America recently recognized both DeBoer and Glab as top overall and position players.

Alexis became only the second freshman in WU history to hit 20 home runs, tying for the fourth-most in a single season at UW. She had a breakout freshman season with 16 multi-hit games, 12 multi-RBI performances, and even a run of 13 consecutive games with an RBI. She continued to deliver, posting a .991 fielding percentage while hitting two home runs and grand slams.

While Kalen DeBoer now leads Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alexis stayed back in Seattle. She had previously relocated 11 times before deciding to attend WU.

Kalen DeBoer and his wife, Nicole, along with Alexis’ younger sister, Avery, made trips whenever they could last season, watching her build a name for herself on her own.

“That’s what has been cool about this whole thing. She’s paved her own way,” Kalen DeBoer said. “I think maybe people at one point, especially when she first committed to Washington, were thinking it was more about me, but she’s proven this was completely about her, and that’s the way Coach Tarr had always approached it. She recruited Alexis for who she was as a softball player and a person, and it’s been great to see her do her thing.”

From recording her first college hit against Alabama to launching her first homer against the Crimson Tide, Alexis has turned pressure into fuel. But long before packed stadiums and conference honors, her story began on tiny fields in Illinois.

Alexis DeBoer carves her path

When Alexis DeBoer was a kindergartner in Carbondale, Illinois, she was swinging at coach-pitched softballs while the majority of children of her age were still interested in the dirt. One day, she smashed a ball over the fence and into her mother Nicole’s Honda Pilot. That was the moment. Her mom, Nicole, shook her head, Kalen DeBoer laughed, and all of a sudden it became clear that this small kid might actually be special.

“My first thought was, ‘OK, maybe we have something here,’ but the little turkey hit my car,” joked Nicole.

What makes Alexis’ rise even more meaningful is how much of it she’s had to do on her own. Kalen DeBoer’s coaching career included seven moves, 11 travel teams, and constantly starting over.

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“A lot of times, when Nicole and the girls could get moved when I’d get a new job, the better travel teams had already been picked and were full,” Kalen DeBoer said. “It was like she was continually having to start over.”

Alexis remained in Seattle, dedicated to WU long before Alabama ever entered the picture, while her parents and younger sister, Avery, now reside in Tuscaloosa.

“I’m right where I want to be, right where I’m supposed to be,” Alexis told her dad. “I know how important this is for you, what a great job it is. We can both have our own paths.”

Since then, the family has done their best to show up when they can and FaceTime when they can’t. Every time Alexis enters the box, she brings a little bit of her father with her.