Peyton Roberts is a freshman at Ringwood High School. She is a pitcher for the Red Devils softball team, as well as being involved in FFA and FCA and a manager for high school basketball. Outside of school, she also plays on a travel ball team out of Garber, Oklahoma, called Force Softball as a pitcher, first base, third base, or anywhere in the outfield. All of this to say, she is a multi-talented and busy student athlete.
“To balance school and sports, I just make sure to get my homework done when I get home after practices or games and always have my work done,” Roberts stated. “To be successful in my sport it has taken working at home, pitching lessons, always putting in extra work, taking practice seriously and using it to improve yourself, and travel ball,” she said.
With so many things battling for her time and attention, Roberts has to be a motivated individual to excel at balancing it all. Aside from post-game meals at Chick-fil-A, she jokes, there are plenty of people that keep her on track.
“I am motivated by my team and family,” she said. “I know they are my biggest supporters and I always want to make them proud. I am also motivated by myself and I want to be the best athlete I can be. I try to always hold myself to high standards and strive to be the best athlete.”
Roberts is lucky to have multiple good role models to look to as well.
“Reagan Derrick is one of my biggest role models. Reagan is my pitching coach and was a great pitcher from Ringwood. She went on to play softball at NOC,” she said. “Another role model in my life would be my mom. My mom is my biggest supporter and she is the one to drive me to all my games and practices. My mom pushes me every day to be the best and keeps me accountable for working at home.”
Some highlight moments in her softball career so far include reaching 100 strikeouts and ending up with 145 strikeouts at the end of the season. She also enjoyed playing against and defeating OBA since they are a great opponent.
Roberts aims to represent her school and community by having a good attitude and sportsmanship when taking the field, and being a leader off of it as well. She prays during games and remembers her favorite Bible verse, 2 Chronicles 15:7, which encourages her to persevere and know that her work will pay off in the end.
“A piece of advice I would want people to know is to always play every game like it’s your last and to always hustle on and off the field. You only get to play this game for a short amount of time and once it’s gone you’re going to miss it. I remind myself to give 110% every game and play my heart out.”
