In honor of national signing day, Kayleigh Russell committed to Bryan College yesterday to continue her education and softball career! All of her coaches and teammates over the years gathered into FCHS to celebrate Kayleigh’s big day. Russell is a senior at Fannin County High School who has been playing softball for ten years. The senior has been playing the sport for as long as she can remember and has played on as many as three teams at the same time! Kayleigh takes her love for the sport a step further as she not only played for the high school all four years, but also multiple travel teams over the years. She currently plays for Georgia Heat and plans to continue there as long as she can before playing at Bryan.

Not only does Kayleigh spend her time playing softball, but she is also very involved in extracurriculars. The senior is a member of the clubs Future Georgia Educators (FGE) and Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). Her sophomore year, she took her involvement a step further as she managed the wrestling team and participated in track and field.

Russell has taken every opportunity to put herself out there and it shows from all of her accomplishments. For travel ball, the athlete has been awarded MVP Catcher of the year in 2016, 4 Tennessee State Championships, and Home Run Derby Award Winner in 2015. Her awards even extend into high school where she has been a varsity starter for all four years, been awarded the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year, 2017 Positive Athlete of Ga Nominee, 2017 best first basemen in region, 2018 All Region 1st Team 7 AAA, 2018 Rebel award, 2018 Positive Athlete of Ga Region Award recipient, 2018 JR All American, she was offered a spot on the Jr Olympic team to play in Amsterdam this past summer, 2019 region 7 AAA player of the month for August, Region 7 AAA second team, and has earned a .977 fielding average.

Head coach of the Lady Rebels Softball Team, Alan Collis, shared this about the athlete on the big day, “Kayleigh is an outstanding student and athlete. She is going to be very much missed by this softball program. She had a great glove and bat and had the ability to play anywhere on the field. Above all of that, what really makes her stand out is her leadership and how she is a teammate. You will be missed, but we are so excited to see what you accomplish.” Principal Erik Cioffi even agreed with the coach by stating, “I actually knew Kayleigh before high school. I was her rec coach and actually saw some of these same attributes in her at eleven years old and am so glad I got to see them develop throughout high school. We are going to miss you, but we know you are going to represent us well in everything that you do.” After Kayleigh signed the papers to make it all official, she shared her gratitude towards everyone who came out for all of their love and support over the years, “If it weren’t for all of you, I wouldn’t be here today.”