Genesis Munoz felt good to finally be on the other side of the table.
For the past couple of years, Munoz has watched her cousins, friends and teammates all sign their national letters of intent to play collegiate sports, but on Wednesday afternoon, it was Munoz signing the dotted line.
Munoz officially signed her NLI to continue her softball career at Franklin College.
“It was fun,” Munoz said. “It was cool to be on the other side after seeing so many people sign.”
Munoz made her decision about two weeks ago, and on Wednesday at Trinity, she was surrounded by her teammates and family to make it official.
“We are extremely excited that Genesis has decided to continue to play softball at the next level. She has had a great high school career thus far, and she truly enjoys playing the game and competing with her team,” Trinity head coach Bob Tabeling said.
“Genesis will be the third player in the last three years that has signed to play college softball,” he said. “We all want to recognize her accomplishments and wish her the very best as she closes out her high school season and prepares for the next exciting phase of her softball career.”
Playing softball in college was something Munoz never really considered when she first got to high school. Her original plan was to attend Indiana University in Bloomington and only focus on her studies, but then her mom pointed out that Munoz might not want to give up softball quite yet.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t think I do, either,’” Munoz said. “Then my travel coaches and my dad put together some videos and we got to put myself out there, and then I got quite a few offers from different places.”
Franklin was the final place Munoz visited, and she started to feel good about it rather quickly.
At first, she wanted to be a doctor as a career, meaning she would major in biology and take the MCAT. But then she switched her major to nursing because her end goal is to be a nurse practitioner.
Once she got to Franklin, she asked them if they had nursing. Franklin doesn’t offer exactly nursing, but many students take another path to get to nursing, so Munoz will study biomedical science there, and after four years, she will go to an accelerated nursing program.
That option, in addition to how much she enjoyed the campus, sold Munoz on the school.
“It was an emotional time because she’s my firstborn and I get to see her play four more years,” said Orlando Munoz, Genesis’ father. “She gets to do something that she loves on top of education. That was one of her questions at Franklin, she gets to be a student before she gets to be a player, and that was extremely important.”
Munoz started playing softball at the age of 5. Her dad tried to get her in a league when she was that age, but they denied her because of her age. So once she turned 6, Munoz joined the league and never looked back.
During her sophomore year of high school, Munoz was invited to the Indiana Elite North vs. South games, and that was when she started to get looked at by colleges.
Her numbers have always been stellar, and that holds true for this season, too. So far this year, Munoz is batting .579 with 22 hits, of which four are doubles and four are home runs. She has 27 RBI and a slugging percentage of .653.
“A lot of people ask me how I’m so good, they say that, and literally, this sport is just second nature,” Munoz said. “I can close my eyes and do it. It just comes to me so easily.”
The Cougars as a team have been doing well, too. They started out the season red hot at 6-0, then came back down to earth for a bit, but as they get more time practicing, they’ve continued to improve this season.
“We’ve surprised a lot of people,” Munoz said. “No one expected us to come out the way we did. We’ve been doing really well, and we all work very well together. We listen, and we just try to do the best for each other.”