Eastern softball is too often regarded simply as the field students walk by on the way back to their dorms. However, if students were to stop and watch these women, they’d see a team lighting up opponents on their way to a PAC Championship.
Students would also see junior captain Alissa Brubaker serving as the team spark plug.
Brubaker’s success on the softball field has been a long time in the making. “I’ve been playing sports my whole life,” Brubaker said. “It all started with tee-ball in kindergarten.”
Whether it was softball, basketball or soccer, Brubaker has excelled at every sport. Students who know Brubaker know her as a softball player, but if it weren’t for unfortunate knee injuries, she just might have moonlighted as an Eastern basketball player as well.
However, her success is really about her dad. “It was hard to get involved in sports [early on] because we lived on a farm. But then my dad took a job as a salesman. He set his own hours. He had more time to kick a soccer ball with us, teach us how to shoot and show us how to throw.”
For Brubaker, it was in the sport of softball that she found herself.
“I love softball because it’s about the team and the individual. When you make an out, it’s usually because of more than one person,” Brubaker said. “But I love the individual aspect, because if someone messes up, you have the opportunity to lift them up on your own.”
Brubaker’s hope is that her success and love for softball become a part of her entire life.
“I love children,” she said. “Someday, I’d love to coach.”