Over the last week, Line Drive has recognized standout high school players across the nation for the 2024-25 school year in our annual High School All-American lists.

This week, we wrap up our look by honoring the 2^nd Team All-Americans as well as the National High School Player of the Year & Coach of the Year.

Our All-American series also includes athletes in states who play in the fall like Georgia, Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma as well as those who compete in the spring into the summer.

Here is the schedule from last week (hyperlinked to the article) and this week:

LINE DRIVE SOFTBALL 2025 HIGH SCHOOL ALL-AMERICAN TIMELINE

• Monday, July 7 – Line Drive Softball 1st Team All-Americans (Pitchers)
• Tuesday, July 8 – Line Drive Softball 1st Team All-Americans (Catchers)
• Wednesday, July 9 – Line Drive Softball 1st Team All-Americans (Infielders)
• Thursday, July 10 – Line Drive Softball 1st Team All-Americans (Outfielders)
• Friday, July 11 – Line Drive Softball 1st Team All-Americans (Multi-Purpose)
• Monday, July 14 – Line Drive Softball 2nd Team All-Americans
• Tuesday, July 15 – Line Drive Softball National High School Player of the Year
• Wednesday, July 16 – Line Drive Softball National High School Coach of the Year

Those chosen are selected based on criteria such as:

• accomplishments, stats and honors

• importance to the success of the team

• on-field abilities, skills and talent
• off-the-field resume, i.e., academic success, community involvement, etc.

Our list is deep and extensive as we feel it necessary to honor all those who deserve to be recognized as a Line Drive Softball High School All-American.

Congrats to all those who made this year’s All-American teams and today we honor the:

2025 Line Drive Softball National High School Player of the Year: Kendall Wells

*** Be sure to scroll down to see our video clip of the athlete learning she’s the National Player of the Year!

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Wells All-Americans

Well, well, well… or, to be more accurate, Wells, Wells, Wells.

That’s because two of the very top players in high school softball this year were Hannah Wells from Texas and Kendall Wells from Georgia.

Both were Line Drive All-Americans—Hannah as a Multi-Purpose player (pitcher/utility) and Kendall at Catcher.

Hannah was also named the Gatorade National High School Player of the Year as well as the MaxPreps High School Player of the Year and as the latter explains:

“It’s hard to top the high school career of Hannah Wells. Dominant in the circle and nearly unstoppable at the plate, she led Coahoma to an unprecedented state championship three-peat in Texas.”

That’s because she led the country and set a Texas single season record with 31 home runs along with 75 RBIs this year and in the circle went 22-1 with a 0.44 ERA and averaged more than two K’s per inning.

Very, very impressive year, for sure, and hard to argue against… yet we’re going to go a different direction with a player that didn’t have as big of numbers but that’s due to the enormous respects her opponents had for her…

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Kendall’s So Dangerous That…

Line Drive Softball’s 2025 National Player of the Year, as announced here first, is Kendall Wells, the senior catcher from North Oconee High in Winder, Ga., a school of 1,300 students located on the western side of Athens and about an hour by car northeast of Atlanta.

The senior is a great athlete, as shown by her also being all-state in basketball, and Kendall’s athleticism is one reason she was ranked as the No. 1 player in the Class of 2025 Line Drive HOT 100.

True, she didn’t win a state championship and her Titans team struggled at times going 13-12 last fall in part because the team’s starting pitcher was a freshman.

But here’s where it gets very interesting…

Kendall’s numbers weren’t as high as some in the country; for example, she had 15 home runs and 28 RBIs, which were very good but not as prolific as some across the country.

However, there’s a very good reason for this: the All-American catcher who signed with the Oklahoma Sooners was intentionally walked 49 times.

Let me repeat that: Kendall was intentionally walked 49 times in 81 plate appearances over 25 games—almost two times per game and 60 percent of her at-bats—and that’s not because she was pitched carefully to or around.

Nope, the catcher was purposely put on base because opposing teams were afraid of the damage she could do if she was pitched to.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Kendall would’ve grown impatient waiting for a chance to do something—anything—at the plate but it was quite the opposite. When she was pitched to, her batting average was .759 and, thanks to her jaw-dropping number of walks, her on-base percentage was a practically unheard of .914.

A power-hitter like Kendall would usually be put in the clean-up spot but North Oconee Head Coach Josh Dillard did something clever: he lined his No. 00-wearing senior up at leadoff to give her more chances to get on base. 

It was a case of picking your poison for opposing pitchers and coaches who were looking to minimize the damage: walk Kendall and she’s on-base, yes, but pitch to her and she could easily be trotting around the bases… or at least getting into scoring position quickly as she used her athleticism to steal 23 bases.

Table setter, indeed.

Still, we asked her, how did she resist trying to do too much when or if the opposition would dare pitch to her?

“I just try to stay patient,” she answered. “It is very hard because I am so eager to hit, but I just really stay patient and within myself. I also think about not trying to do too much—just looking to get a base hit, not swinging for the fences or anything.”

“It was really hard at times as I would go up and take huge swings at the first pitch but then that would kind of settle me back down into myself to do what I can do!”

Coach Dillard says that patience at the plate came in time as the season progressed.

“Kendall was so excited to be pitched to last season,” he recalls. “There were a couple of times early that she was so giddy to see live pitching that she was so incredibly early with her swing, but she absolutely did learn to stay within herself. Kendall had to in order to not drive herself crazy!”

Not only did the senior not get down about how teams in the other dugout showed their respect, the soon-to-be Sooner used the opportunity to be a leader by example to her mostly younger teammates.

“Kendall had the opportunity to be very sour about the way she was treated by other teams,” Dillard continues, “but she made the most of it. Not only that, she was also a leader in the clubhouse and was a spark for other girls in the program.”

Rival teams could try to shut down her prolific hitting, but they also quickly learned to not test her arm when she was dressed in the team’s red and gray catching gear.

Kendall was also a game changer behind the plate—a “menace” as her head coach describes her—as her fielding percentage was nearly perfect and in 116 innings she had just three passed balls.

And few dared try to run on her, either. Only nine attempts were made all season, and she threw four of those out.

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The Family That Plays Together…

Kendall is the second of four girls and all keep quite busy.

Oldest sister Karlee is a D1 diver at Georgia Southern University and her young sisters, Kourtney and Kamryn are twins, although the former is a junior shortstop on the North Oconee High softball team and the latter is a barrel racer.

The girls’ parents were also athletes as their father was a high school football player and their mother played softball at a small JC in northern Georgia.

Monday evening, although soon to leave for Norman, Okla. to begin her freshman season at OU, Kendall was at her high school alma mater’s softball field to watch Kourtney play in a scrimmage against a local team as the Titans first varsity game of the season is just two and a half weeks away, on August 1^st against Peachtree Ridge High.

That’s where Kendall received the call that she’s the 2025 Line Drive National High School Player of the Year… here’s a clip of that taking place:

What is the older softball player’s scouting report on her younger sis?

“Kourtney plays the infield really well and is very consistent at shortstop,” Kendall states. “She continues to improve in her game with her arm strength and range. She is also very consistent at the plate with gap-to-gap power and is speedy on the bases.”

Coach Dillard chimes in with own perspective of the two Wells sisters.

“Kourtney and Kendall are definitely different,” he says, “but their aggression at the plate and on the bases are eerily similar. Kourtney, like Kendall, is a menace on the base paths and, although she may not have the power that Kendall has, she is stepping up in her role as a leader in her sister’s absence.”

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Is There a Doctor in the House?

As admirable as Kendall’s athletic abilities are, she’s also an All-American in the classroom.

She finished with A’s and a GPA of 101. The Peach State prodigy also took five AP classes and got 5’s on the ones in AP Bio, Calc AB, Calc BC and Macroeconomics with a 4 in AP Chemistry.

Kendall also knows what she wants to do in her future off the field.

“I want to go to medical school,” she says, “and be an orthopedic surgeon.

However, if there is one area of controversy surrounding Kendall, it may be her college choice, surprising as that may be to some.

Yes, The Univ. of Oklahoma won four straight National Championships prior to this year, but the Sooners don’t have one thing that is crucial to most in the state of Georgia: they’re not in the SEC.

And considering that many in the Wells family are tied into the Bulldogs… well, that could have been a problem, but Kendall says it wasn’t.

“Yes, my family has always been Georgia fans,” she admits, “and many of my relatives graduated from there; however, it didn’t go bad when I chose OU… my family was all happy for me and excited to see me thrive at Oklahoma.”

So they say that out loud, although it will be interesting to see how Kendall’s surrounding community of family, friends and fans react if the teams ever face each other, especially in the NCAA playoffs.

Perhaps it won’t be so easy then to give the softball standout an intentional pass.

— Brentt Eads/Line Drive Softball