Taylor made: Senior looking forward to college softball

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When it came to participating in athletics at Seymour High School, Faith Rebber has specialized in softball.

“I love my teammates. I love feeling that I’m good at something because I know I’m good,” she said.

During a ceremony Tuesday at the school, Rebber signed to play softball at Taylor University in Upland.

“I kind of like that it’s out in the middle of nowhere, that it actually forces the students to spend time together and actually talk to each other,” she said of why she chose Taylor.

Taylor is a member of the Crossroads League, made up of 10 schools in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The head coach softball coach is Brad Bowser. The Trojans were 17-19 in the Crossroads League last season and 27-28 overall.

Rebber said she liked her visit to the Taylor campus.

“I really didn’t go down to the field. I saw it from a distance, and it looked pretty nice,” she said. “It’s definitely been a dream of mine to play college softball. When I was a freshman, I decided I wanted to play college softball, but it took me a while to make the decision where I wanted to go.”

Rebber said she visited three other colleges before deciding on Taylor. She plans to major in exercise science.

Her start in softball was with T-ball, and then she played in the Seymour youth softball leagues and has been playing the sport ever since.

Rebber has played shortstop for the Owls the past three seasons and hopes to play there this spring.

“I’m basically the captain of the field,” she said. “I have all the responsibility. I love defense. It’s my favorite part.”

At Taylor, Rebber said she hopes to play infield.

“There’s another really good shortstop coming in, so I’ll have a little bit of competition,” she said.

This past spring, Rebber was named to The Tribune’s all-county team and earned Hoosier Hills Conference honorable mention.

She has hit either third or fourth in the batting order for the Owls. In the spring, she had 32 hits with two home runs, 10 doubles, four triples and 19 RBI and a batting average of .458 and helped the Owls post a record of 18-8. She has six home runs during her high school career.

“Usually, since the first and second batters are supposed to get on base, I try to hit it to the right side so I can drive them in,” she said. “Usually, it depends on if there is a runner on base. If there is a runner on base, I always try to hit to the right side because that can always help. I always hit for power as hard as I can.”

Dave Urbanski, assistant athletics director at Seymour High School, said he feels like Taylor will be a good fit for Rebber.

“From what I’ve seen on the field, she’s definitely a role player that can definitely help out in more than one place at Taylor University,” he said. “She has a range of excellence in all facets of the game, which is only going to be a benefit at the university, than just being good at one or two.”

Rebber also has had a lot of good experiences playing travel ball.

“I’ve played club ball since I was 8, usually with a team out of Seymour. Right now, I’m playing with a team out of Hope,” she said.

She said she has been to several regional and national tournaments during the summers, including playing in Tennessee, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

“Last summer, we went to the (ASA) nationals in Myrtle Beach. This year (2017), I’m going to play USSSA because I switched teams. This team is still out of Hope. We’ve got the same team. We’ve just got new players,” she said.

She said club ball has made her a better player.

“Because my travel coaches know a lot about softball and they’ve been coaching for a really long time, so they’ve made me a lot better player,” she said.

Rebber said she pitched when she first started playing club ball, but she has played either shortstop or third base as she got older.

Rebber is the third member of the Seymour Class of 2017 to announce plans to extend their athletics career at Taylor. Katie Suits also will play softball, while Lauren James will play basketball there.

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