Today’s Line Drive Media National High School Player of the Week is our FINAL ONE of the 2026 Spring season and—next up—we turn our attention to our National High School All-American Teams!

We’ll announce very soon how nominations will be taken for the Line Drive High School All-American Teams and when those chosen will be announced.

Stay tuned!!!

In this final edition of this series for now, we conclude with two great pitchers who led their teams to perfect seasons wrapping up with state titles last week…

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Results & stats below are for games played Monday, June 8, 2026, through Sunday, June 14, 2026…

Line Drive Softball’s National High School PLAYER of the Week (June 17, 2026)

*** You can’t do much better than perfect and that was the case this year for South Warren High of Bowling Green, Ky. which finished 45-0 behind outstanding junior pitcher Courtney Norwood, who went 26-0 in the circle.

The Lady Spartans are the 2026 Line Drive SUPER 70 National Champions and will officially be announced as No. 1 in the final rankings coming out very soon.

Courtney not only was undefeated, she also elevated her play when in counted most: in the Kentucky state playoffs.

The Univ. of Kentucky-committed pitcher started seven of South Warren’s post season games and she was unstoppable.

Of the seven wins, she pitched five shutouts including a perfect game in region play. Courtney held the opposing teams—in the state playoffs, mind you, against the best squads in the state—scoreless in six of her seven starts!

She earns our final Line Drive National High School Player of the Week honor for the 2026 season because she pitched the Spartans to the title last week and, in the semi and championships wins, she totaled 11 innings with no runs scored, only four hits and 11 strikeouts.

In the championship game, Courtney didn’t even allow a hit until the sixth inning when the game was well in hand—an 8-0 victory against a strong hitting Bullitt East High team.

South Warren Head Coach Kelly Reynolds saw the “eye of the tiger” before the standout pitcher took the field for the final game of the season.

“In the championship, I knew when she threw the first pitch, she was ready!” she remembers. “I even looked over at one of our assistant coaches who was sitting beside me and said: ‘She is bringing it tonight!’”

But it wasn’t just a one-night hot performance, either.

“Courtney was on fire throughout the entire state tournament!” Coach Reynolds adds. “She is very poised and stoic in the circle and locked in.”

The athlete agreed with her coach that she was primed for a big finale to close out the season.

“I did feel like I was on top of my game,” Courtney says. “I had a lot of adrenaline coming into the championship game and, even the night prior, I could barely sleep because I was just so ready to play. I knew this was the last game, so I had to give it everything I had.”

In the four games of the Kentucky state championship she pitched in, Courtney threw 21.2 innings and struck out 32 opponents with only two earned runs given up.

Certainly, she ended the season on a high note, but the Kentucky star’s entire season was strong, from beginning to end.

Courtney pitched in 27 games total with 25 of them being starts and logged 131.2 innings. She struck out 204 and gave up just 20 earned runs all year for a 1.01 ERA while giving up just 20 walks as well.

The results were pretty impressive: an undefeated season, a state title and national championship.

“What will you remember most about this season as time goes by?” we asked Courtney

“This season was definitely one of a kind and I couldn’t have asked for a better ending,” she replies.  “What I’ll remember most about the season is the journey we had and the people I got to share it with. To finish our season out with winning a state championship is so surreal, and I will never forget this.”

When asked what helped her have such a great 2026 campaign, the pitcher says, unselfishly, that is was due in large part to the great report she had with backstop Kinleigh Russell, one of the outstanding half dozen seniors on the team and an Oklahoma State signee.

“What helped me do so well in my pitching this season was the fact that I had a catcher who I could fully trust and Kinleigh would get me so many extra calls too,” Courtney says.

She adds that getting into more time in the circle helped too.

“As the season progressed, I did feel like I got better all around. For me, the more I pitch the better I do most of the time.”

Great last week? Check. Great playoff run? Check. Great 2026 season? Check… from beginning to end.

But could she also have had a comparably great career, too? Oh yea… definitely.

The future Wildcat has been a varsity pitcher at South Warren since the seventh grade and through complete five seasons she has compiled an 81-9 career record with 693 strikeouts and a 1.54 ERA over 486.0 innings pitched.

Impressively, her strikeout totals increased each season from 81 as a seventh grader to 109 (8^th grade) to 139 (9^th grade) to 160 (10^th) to a career-high 204 this season.

Here’s a career listing year-by-year with her key pitching totals:

• • 2022 (7th Grade): 12-2 | 85.0 IP | 81 K | 13 BB | 1.81 ERA
  • 2023 (8th Grade): 9-1 | 74.0 IP | 109 K | 12 BB | 2.26 ERA
  • 2024 (Freshman): 16-3 | 98.0 IP | 139 K | 14 BB | 1.36 ERA
  • 2025 (Sophomore): 18-3 | 97.1 IP | 160 K | 8 BB | 1.26 ERA
  • 2026 (Junior): 26-0 | 131.2 IP | 204 K | 20 BB | 1.01 ERA | Kentucky state champion

TOTALS: 81-9 record | 486.0 IP | 693 strikeouts | 67 walks | 1.54 ERA

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Next up for the 2027 grad is the travel ball season.

She competes for the Louisville Sluggers 18U team coached by Jim Huecker and her father, Scott Norwood, who says:

“We are leaving in the morning for the (Scenic City Summer) Top 25. We are ready for the summer season!”

Courtney echoes her father’s excitement to now transition to club ball, which this weekend will see her play in Dalton Ga.

“I’m so excited to get back to my travel team this summer and continue to play against the best players in the country. I play for the Louisville Sluggers Huecker/Norwood.”

Looking ahead to next high school season (2027), the Spartans lose a strong nucleus of seniors and Courtney will be looked up to be the team’s leader when the 2027 season kicks off.

Coach Reynolds feels the pitcher will be more than up for the challenge.

“Courtney has been a consistent factor for us all year and in years past and I’m excited to see what she brings to the field next season!”

The championship season was great, and the pitcher says she’ll always treasure the wins, yes, but the fun she had with the many older players who will moving on, most to play at the college level.

“I’ll miss everything about these seniors,” she admits. “I’ve been playing with all of these girls for years now and they were all great players and even better teammates.”

“Next year, I’ll try to lead the same way they did and continue to build the culture we have at South Warren.

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Runner-Up Line Drive Softball National Players of the Week

*** Talk about being a workhorse for your team!

Senior pitcher Jenica Matos of Cheshire (Conn.) High helped the Rams to a 27-0 record and second straight state championship in the largest division of the state, Class LL.

A St. John’s University signee, Jenica had an incredible week as she pitched her team to a nail-biter 12-inning marathon 1-0 win totaling 26 strikeouts in a semi-final win over Darien High that was paced by a standout pitcher of its own, Vivian Knott, who will play at Stanford.

The duo combined for 49 strikeouts before Cheshire pulled out the win thanks to a bottom of the 12^th walk-off single by Ava Pearson to send the Rams to the state championship game.

Last Saturday saw Cheshire High take on Southington High in that Connecticut Class LL Championship Game and once again it was dominated by Jenica as she tossed a one-hit 2-0 shutout and totaled 15 strikeouts.

For her final high school season, Jenica had a 24-0 record with a 0.11 ERA and struck out 429 hitters. Her ERA was second best in the nation this year according to MaxPreps and opponents hit just .072 against her and got on base at just a .168 percentage.

Jenica was previously ranked No. 43 in the 2026 Line Drive HOT 100 released in 2025 and in the summer plays for the Empire State Huskies travel ball program.

She was also named today as the MaxPreps Connecticut State Player of the Year.

— Brentt Eads/Line Drive Media

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Previous 2026 Line Drive National High School Players of the Week

• June 9: Abi Call—Valley View (Archbald, Pa.)
• June 2: Tinley Goodson—Poquoson (Va.) High
• May 27: Bella Ortiz—Hagerty (Oviedo, Fla.) High
• May 19: Hinano Bautista—Mililan (Hawaii) High
• May 12: Anleigh Wood—Wicksburg (Newton, Ala.) High
• May 5: Addison DeRoche— Cheverus (Portland, Maine) High
• Apr. 28: McLaine Hudson—South Warren (Bowling Green, Ky.) High
• Apr. 22: Finlee Williams—Melissa (Texas)
• Apr. 14:  Addison Davis—Pearl River Central (Carriere, Miss.)
• Apr. 7:    Karmen Vazquez—Hanford (Calif.) West
• Mar. 31: Morgan Maxwell—West Forsyth (N.C.)
• Mar. 24: Siena Greenlinger—Chaminade College Preparatory (West Hills, Calif.)
• Mar. 17: Presley Kilgore— Rains (Emory, Texas)
• Mar. 10: Emma Pynes—Cornerstone Charter Academy (Belle Isle, Fla.)
• Mar. 3:   Avery Howerton—Whitesboro (Texas) High
• Feb. 24: Krimson Calhoun—Thompson (Alabaster, Ala.) High
• Feb. 17: Lolo Gamble—Dripping Springs (Texas) High

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Nomination Process

Each week during the spring and summer high school seasons, Line Drive Softball is honoring a National High School Player of the Week.

The posts are published every Tuesday and the cutoff for submitting the nominations is each Monday at 5 pm EST/2 pm PST.

We’re looking for standouts who excelled in the circle, at the plate or in the field so be sure to nominate your favorite performance(s) by submitting the following:

• Player Name
• Grad Year (example: Class of 2026 or Senior)
• Position(s)
• High School Team Name (with city/state)
• Stats for the Week (be as detailed as possible!)
• Up-to-date Season Stats (where possible)
• Recruiting Information (if applicable)
• Any interesting Background Info on the player
• Photos: action and/or head shots (as available)
• If possible, Contact Info (player, parent, coach… if we’d like more info or quotes)

Email info and photos (1-4 as available) by the cutoff of Monday at 5 pm EST/2 pm PST to: Brentt.Eads@LineDriveMedia.com