Mingus Union senior Alexis Ayersman’s journey started in a dirt lot.
Bored of soccer, her father enrolled her in tee-ball, hoping she’d latch on to a sport around the age of 7. That was boring too. Perhaps because it just came too easy to her. She moved up a level to coach pitch and the extra practice on the dirt lot next to her childhood home paid off.
“It was a huge bonding thing for my dad and I,” she said. “We’ve always been sports-oriented and softball was just a way that we connected and clicked. He’s helped me get to where I’m at so I can’t be more grateful to my dad than I am.”
From that dirt lot in Cottonwood to a commitment to the two-time defending junior college national champions, Ayersman has been on a heck of a journey. Her high-school sports career concludes with the title of Cottonwood Journal Extra’s Mingus Union Female Athlete of the Year.
“I couldn’t be more appreciative of this season. It made me fall in love with the sport again.”
Alexis Ayersman
The 2022 Mingus softball season was a long-time coming. Much of the team and its six seniors played together from elementary school age. Ayersman says they’re more like family than teammates.
“We’ve literally went through everything in our lives together,” she said. “From schools to any problems we’ve had with families, anything, we’ve always been there for each other. And having that level of trust on and off the field have made us so different from anybody else.”
Growing up together meant maturing together and dealing with good — and bad. The Marauders went out in an earlier-than-expected exit from the state playoffs in 2021. A 17-2 regular-season record earned the No. 4 seed for Mingus heading into state and a second-round upset loss shattered the hope of a championship run.
Things got worse. In July, 16-year old Mingus softball player Faith Moore was killed after getting swept away in flash flood waters, prompting a city-wide search-and-rescue operation.
Ayersman’s senior season suddenly gained new meaning. With Moore’s No. 8 jersey hanging in the Mingus dugout, Ayersman’s appearances in the pitching circle took on an emotional toll, for Faith and for her coach John Brown.
“Playing for Faith was a big thing for us and we definitely tried to honor her the best we could,” she said. “John Brown would talk to us about her and he’s not an emotional person really, but he was able to get on a more emotional level with us this year … We definitely just all checked in on each other a lot and I think that all helped us pull through.”
The emotional climax of the season came near the midpoint. The team met in a Mingus Union classroom with each player bringing items that bared emotional significance to them. Ayersman brought a necklace given to her by her late grandfather, a letter from teammate and friend Marissa Vocca, written in the fourth grade, and another item that signifies the unabashed strength this young woman possesses.
“I brought my medication because I’ve been working on some mental stuff,” she said. “Its really been a huge part of my life that I’ve been overcoming.”
The removal of mental health from social taboos is important to Ayersman. She says she’s always struggled with anxiety, a condition that’s taken a larger toll on her through the years. Finding support was a turning point in her life, she says, and softball has long been an outlet.
The team motto this season was “last one, best one,” in reference to the senior-heavy roster, and the last season for Brown as coach after a 12-year run at Mingus. Ayersman certainly lived up to the motto. Her last season at Mingus was one for the record books.
She demolished the single-season strikeout record for a Mingus pitcher with 300. The previous record was 253. She cracked the top 50 in the nation with wins, at 21. In 180 innings pitched she gave up just 131 hits and had an ERA of 1.28 with nine complete-game shutouts.
At the plate she hit for an absurd .474 average and nine home runs.
“I couldn’t be more appreciative of this season,” she said. “It made me fall in love with the sport again.”
The season concluded with a state semifinal loss to Salpointe Catholic, the No. 13 team in the nation according to MaxPreps. But the journey doesn’t stop there for Ayersman. She’ll join the softball program at Phoenix College in the fall. On May 29, the Bears won their second-consecutive National Junior College Athletic Association Division II National Champions and tenth overall in program history.
There, she’ll major in physical therapy with hopes of potentially transferring to a university to continue her softball career.
As great an athlete as she is, Ayersman recognizes that she couldn’t have done it alone. The people along the way on her journey have helped her grow, and they’re all part of the reason why the name Alexis Ayersman will someday enter the national softball conversation.
“I would like to thank my coaches and all the family this sport has given me,” she said. “My career isn’t over yet, but the past decade I want to thank everybody that’s come into my life and given me the love and support and care that everybody deserves.”
