Claritza Caceres, 17, is a junior at the International School for Liberal Arts at the Walton campus. Quiet and modest, with a petite frame, her appearance hardly lets on that she is what many would consider a softball prodigy. This past season, Claritza muscled a .696 batting average with 45 runs batted in and 29 stolen bases. A pitcher, she had an earned run average of 3.68.

Claritza, who is from the Dominican Republic, did not play proper softball until came to the U.S. at age 12. But she got some serious practice in her home country, where she and friends improvised with sticks and bottle caps.

One year, Claritza got her first real softball as a birthday present from her uncle. Compared to hitting a cap with a stick, it was a piece of cake. “That ball is so special to me,” she said. “It’s my lucky one.”  Claritza did not recognize her talent until middle school gym class, when the coach asked her to join the team. At the time, she says she was “half good,” but “got better and better,” and her gradual improvement helped her fall in love with the game.

While softball comes easily to her, Claritza says she also loves a good challenge.  Her commitment to school and homework has her friends calling her old-fashioned, but she considers school a route to achieving her goal – not to become a professional softball player, but to become an FBI agent – or both.

“If plan A does not work, I have plan B, plan C, and even plan D,” Claritza said.

“I would like to try something different – more challenging,” she said, adding that a career in the FBI is, to her, “more prestigious,” than playing ball, and that protecting people is part of her personality. At 11, she saved her little sister from drowning in a pool.

Claritza would like to study criminal justice at John Jay College. She said she wasn’t sure if they have a softball team.

They do. They’re called the Bloodhounds – pretty appropriate for a future FBI agent.