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Coming into her sophomore season for the Morristown East Lady ‘Canes, Ella Wampler had high expectations for herself.

She exceeded those expectations and more in her prolific sophomore season and was named District 2-4A Offensive Player of the Year as well as making the All-Tournament team. Now, she can add the Citizen Tribune’s Lakeway Area Offensive Player of the Year to her already impressive resume.

“I think this season was great for me, I was coming off a pretty good travel ball season,” said Wampler. “My biggest goal for this season was to help my team win as many games as possible. Personally, I had a goal of breaking the home run record and raising my batting average.”

She achieved all of her goals for the season, coming up huge for the Lady ‘Canes and helped clinch a regional berth.

For the season, Wampler batted .442 with a .958 slugging percentage. She hit 14 homers this year to break East’s single-season record on 42 hits, while batting in 45 runs.

A multi-sport athlete, Wampler was also named to the Citizen Tribune’s All-Lakeway basketball team. She gives a lot of credit to Marc Weekly of Marc Weekly Hitting Academy for helping her improve at the plate while balancing a busy basketball practice schedule.

“I tried to get in the cage to pitch and hit as much as I could coming into the season while still playing basketball. My hitting coach Marc Weekly really helped me focus on my weaknesses and try to improve upon them,” said Wampler. “Going into the season, I felt like my swing was looking real good, so I had a lot of confidence going in. I really felt like I would definitely improve from last year, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this big of an improvement.”

All of that work in the off-season had her ready when the moment came for her to fulfill that goal of breaking the home run record.

“Coming into that game I knew I just needed to stay calm and it would happen. I think I had a four or five game home run streak going, so I knew it would come,” said Wampler. “Stepping into that batter’s box, I just had a feeling that it was going to happen and as soon as I hit the ball I just knew. I told my Dad as a freshman that I was going to break this record at some point in my high school career. Just seeing that ball go over the fence I had the biggest grin on my face, it was amazing.”

Confidence is such an integral component of the game of softball, particularly when in the batters box. All of Wampler’s offseason work gave her the confidence that if she did her thing at the plate, she’d be able to help her team.

“My mindset at the plate this year was just be confident and make contact with the ball and good things will happen,” said Wampler.

When asked about her favorite game this season, her answer doesn’t come as a surprise.

“My favorite game would have to be the game I broke the record,” said Wampler. “Just seeing my friends, family and some of my teachers there and the announcer, one of my great friends, say that I broke the record just felt amazing.”

Wampler still sees a lot of room to improve entering next season, both as a team and an individual. She has her eyes set on breaking her own record, so she won’t be resting this summer.

“I continue to work with Marc on a weekly basis to try and improve upon my weaknesses,” said Wampler. “I have been playing with my Mojo-Sherrill summer team in Florida, Georgia, Colorado and California against some really top level competition.”

As far as East’s home run record is concerned, the only competition she has now is herself.