Last night (Thur., August 27), Line Drive Media named Dulcie Cleeland—the talented infielder from Vancouver, Wash. who attends Jesuit High in Portland, Ore. and plays for the NW Bullets club organization—to the 2028 HOT 100, ranking her No. 66 overall.

Here’s how her bio read:

T-66—Dulcie Cleeland, IF, NW Bullets 18U – Campos/Dawson

Talk about coming from an athletic family! Few in the sport of softball—shoot, in any sport—could match the sports family pedigree that Dulcie has. Her father, Cam Cleeland, played football and baseball at the Univ. of Washington before lining up in the NFL as a tight end for eight years. The high schooler’s mother, Mindy Williams Cleeland, played softball and basketball for the Washington Huskies and her brother, Roice, is currently playing on the offensive line at UC Davis and another brother, Treynor, is a quarterback for UC Davis.  Those athletic skills have been continued on the softball field as Dulcie has emerged as one of the standout 2028 corner infielders in the Northwest. The junior from Vancouver, Wash., missed the summer and fall of last year (2025), but returned stronger than ever. Head Coach Mariah Dawson notes: “Dulcie is an extremely competitive player who plays the game with confidence and intensity every time she steps on the field. At the plate, she is a true middle of the order hitter who hits for both average and power.” This summer, Dulcie batted .489 with a .579 on-base percentage and a 1.646 OPS and a 1.067 slugging percentage. She smashed seven home runs, five doubles and drove in 23 runs while putting up a stellar defensive fielding percentage of .978 playing both corner infield spots.

The softball standout’s dynamic family of athletes is certainly notable, but there’s another aspect to Dulcie’s story that makes her successes that more impressive.

As she relates in her first-person account below, the outstanding softball and basketball player was diagnosed two years ago with a rare bone issue that ultimately led to surgery and an extended recovery time of a year and a half.

For 18 months, Dulcie was forced to watch from the sidelines as her friends and teammates competed in the two sports she loves.

It was a tough time of being away from competition, the current high school junior admits, but she spent her time away from playing to help others, before she was finally able to return to being on the field and court seven months ago.

How has her return been so far?

The athlete’s club head coach, Mariah Dawson, told Line Drive Media’s Brentt Eads:

“She has returned stronger than ever and is making an immediate impact.”

“Dulcie’s determination and work ethic have fueled her impressive comeback and she has caught the attention of coaches and our opponents. She is an extremely competitive player who plays the game with confidence and intensity every time she steps on the field.”

“If her early-season performance is any indication, she is poised for a breakout year and will continue to be a key contributor for our NW Bullets for the next few years.”

Here’s Dulcie’s story in her own words…

*****

In the summer of 2024, I was diagnosed with Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD) in both of my knees.

This is a rare childhood bone condition where a piece of bone loses blood supply, dies, and separates from the surrounding bone so my bones had slowly been breaking off over the course of four years causing intermittent pain in both knees from the ages of 10 to 14.

After being diagnosed with this mid-summer softball season of my eighth-grade year, I had surgery a week later on my left knee to screw my bone back in place.

I was non-weight bearing, on crutches, for six weeks.

Four months later, at the end of November, I had surgery on my right knee to do the same thing.

Once again I was non-weight bearing for six weeks.

The only way to heal this condition was to have complete rest in order to let the bones calcify, so for over 18 months I was only allowed to walk while wearing off-loading knee braces.

In total, I missed five consecutive seasons of softball, basketball, and volleyball.

During the entire recovery process I diligently went to physical therapy twice a week and did everything I could to stay connected with the game of softball, even if it meant hitting balls off of a tee while sitting on a bucket, charting and calling pitches for my summer team and helping coach and manage my teams.

I never missed a practice, game or PT session during this time for softball, basketball or as a varsity football manager.

I also chose to complete over 150 hours of volunteer service during that year as a student Athletic Trainer taping athletes and helping with their therapies.

Additionally, I ran a service called “Gear for the Globe” (gearfortheglobe IG) organizing, marketing, and collecting over 400 used pieces of baseball and softball equipment to donate to grow the game of baseball in Africa partnering with “Angels at Bat.”

In January of this year, I was finally and fully cleared to play softball and basketball again and, even with this huge setback, I have been able to completely recover and get back to competing and playing sports.