Skyler Ramos was nearly hoarse as she spoke, but her enthusiasm bubbled even still. And why not; her Iowa State team is off to a record-breaking start to their season, now standing 9-1 on the year.
Two weeks into the 2021 season, Ramos and the Cyclones are one of the nation’s early Cinderella stories. After beginning the year 8-0, the team set a new record for the best start to a season in program history. A true senior, Ramos leads her squad in both batting average and on-base percentage.
Ramos’ terrific statistical start might seem like unfamiliar territory, especially for a player who earned a starting role as a junior last season. For the Ventura, California native, though, it represents a renewed perspective on the game of softball and life in general.
“Mentally, I’m in a good space,” she said. “I’m feeling more confident. I’m having fun doing it. And I’m just enjoying the time that I have; the moments of softball that I get to really play… This is probably one of my last opportunities [to play softball], so it’s all about going out and leaving it all on the field. We don’t get very many opportunities, and we got our season cut short last year. Opportunities can get ripped away from us.”
Not to be lost in her continuing accomplishments on the field are Ramos’ accomplishments in the classroom. A liberal studies major, she is set to be the first member of her family to graduate from college. “No matter what happens on the field, I know I’m already moving mountains as an individual in education,” Ramos said as she spoke of holding her eventual diploma.
Across the first three years of her playing career as a Cyclone, Ramos appeared in eighty total games. As a freshman, she batted just above the Mendoza line and served as mainly a role player. During her sophomore season, she started five games and recorded one hit through the entire year. As a junior in 2020, she became the team’s starting center fielder but collected just nine hits before the season shut down.
In 2021, she has already more than doubled her career totals in doubles and RBIs, and during her team’s first week of play, she hit her first career home run.
“As soon as it hit my bat, I remember thinking ‘wow, that felt really good,'” Ramos recalled of her roundtripper. “I obviously haven’t had much success at the plate, but I put in a lot of work and coach Court[ney Martinez]knows that. She works with me a lot. I remember rounding first and seeing her, and then all of my teammates were absolutely going bonkers. That was the best part for me honestly; I think they were more proud of me than I was proud of myself in that moment.”
While her teammates’ support meant so much to Ramos as she celebrated the accomplishment, when she took the field for the next half-inning, she had some extra thoughts on her mind. “It was extra special for me, because my family doesn’t get to come to a lot of games and not a lot of our games are on TV,” Ramos shared. “But these just happened to be on TV, and I could think about how proud all of them were. I was standing in left field and just smiling uncontrollably. Not because I hit a home run for the first time in my career, but we have a family group chat and I was thinking about the millions of text messages that I was gonna get back to. It’s really my family’s support that makes it all happen.”
