It’s Katelyn Abellera’s (12) junior year, and she eagerly prepares to take on her role as team captain of the varsity girls softball team — only to find out their season has been canceled. With just two more people, perhaps the balance would have tipped the other way, but there simply weren’t enough players to field a team.

“They ended the entire season because [there weren’t enough players],” Katelyn said. “It was sad because that choice impacted everyone, and a bunch of the senior players were crying because they didn’t get their senior night.”

Yet, even after the season was canceled, Katelyn continued to participate in softball by coaching Harker’s middle school team. There, she fought the declining participation in the sport through her mentorship.

Katelyn herself started softball at Harker in fourth grade and has been playing at the club level since fifth grade. As a veteran pitcher, she views softball as a relatively solitary endeavor, where she practices the same motion again and again in an effort to gain more power.

“When you strike someone out with the pitch you’ve been working on for so long, it’s so satisfying,” Katelyn said. “All of your practice pays off, and it’s the best feeling ever.”

This focus and drive stands out to close friend Sydney Adler (12). She admires Katelyn’s competitive spirit and enthusiasm towards softball, noting that Katelyn constantly strives to improve herself.

“When she tells you about softball, she thinks about the game a lot more than a typical player,” Sydney said. “A typical player will just be like, ‘Oh, that didn’t go right,’ but she’s thinking about ‘Which play did we actually want to accomplish? How did that go wrong?’”

Sydney also observes this energy when they play Uno together, a card game Katelyn competes in with enthusiasm. Still, Katelyn remains laid back and easygoing, approaching challenges with a calm head.

“[Katelyn] just has such a firm grip on what she values,” Sydney said. “Overall, her presence is calming to people. She’s fun, and she’s funny.”

Looking to fill the void left by softball in junior year, Katelyn took up lacrosse, a more team-focused sport. She dedicated herself to learning new techniques and plays, spending countless lunches practicing with teammate Kyra Hawk (12) to sharpen her skills.

“Katelyn was really excited, really energetic,” Kyra said. “She was definitely nervous about trying to score, but she put so much energy and asked so many questions that you could really tell she cared. She was really fun to coach.”

These extra hours of training paid off. Progressing from awkwardly struggling to consistently scoring goals, Katelyn earned the most improved player award on the girls lacrosse team. Upper school chemistry teacher Andrew Irvine, her advisor and lacrosse coach, recognized her talent and perseverance.

“It didn’t take her very long to learn some of these fundamentals,” Irvine said. “Katelyn could throw pretty much within day one, which is very unusual, at least from my experience.”

Outside of athletics, Katelyn exhibits the same drive and hunger for self-improvement. Before she even started softball, she had picked up the violin in third grade. Although she didn’t immediately fall in love with the instrument, her inspiration came when she advanced to the intermediate level at the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp one summer.

“I was one of the worst people there,” Katelyn said. “I was inspired by all the musicians in front of me. They were so good. I would ask them, ‘Oh, what do you do to practice? How much do you practice?’ I really wanted to get better because of them.”

Just as she had done with softball or lacrosse, Katelyn set out to learn and improve as much as she could with violin. Following that summer at Interlochen, she dedicated time to practice every week, and by freshman year, she observed clear progress from recordings she had made in seventh grade. Eager to immerse herself in the community surrounding music, Katelyn has remained committed to the upper school orchestra throughout high school and currently plays the first violin part.

Inside the classroom, Katelyn has been branching out to new areas too, exploring courses such as Arranging and Composing and AP Computer Science. Katelyn approaches each new endeavor with her trademark commitment, striving to achieve her fullest potential. Looking back, she feels grateful for the opportunities she has been given to discover and participate in so many diverse pursuits.

“It just makes me wonder: if softball hadn’t gotten canceled, I never would have known about lacrosse,” Katelyn said. “I have to start trying new [activities], because there could be so much that I’ve missed.”