April 18, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Izabella Regner didn’t intend to be a pitcher when she started playing softball as a 10-year-old in Elkhorn, Wis.
But then, as is often the case in sports stories, the girl who was supposed to pitch backed out, and Regner, who goes by Izzy, volunteered to take her place.
She still remembers the moment.
“I instantly fell in love with it,” she recalled.
A decade or so later her love for pitching has only intensified. And after a sterling high school and travel ball career, Regner now toes the pitching rubber for the Grand Rapids Community College Raiders. And, she has become one of the top pitchers in the nation.
“What I love about pitching is having control of the diamond and seeing hard work pay off with big swings and misses,” she said with a smile.
Those swings and misses have come in abundance this season when she gets the start.
After a recent weekend five-game series against Alpena Community College – in which she pitched and won three times – GRCC was 16-13 overall.
Regner’s record was 13-2, including three wins against Alpena by scores of 4-0 (eight strikeouts and one walk surrendered), 9-1 (11 strikeouts, one walk) and 5-0 (11 strikeouts, three walks).
For the season, the 5’6” right-hander had pitched 110 innings with 188 Ks and just 23 walks. For good measure, her .472 batting average through 29 games was among the best on the Raider squad.
Regner’s strikeouts per seven innings is third best in the nation in the National Junior College Athletic Association’s Division II. She’s third in complete games and fifth in strikeouts overall.
Regner said she decided to come to GRCC when her boyfriend was recruited to play baseball at Cornerstone. It’s a long way from Elkhorn, Wis., to Grand Rapids, some 280 miles around the bottom of Lake Michigan.
But the distance from the mound to home plate is still 43 feet, the feel of the softball is the same in her hands and the sound of a perfectly placed fastball popping the catcher’s mitt for strike three never gets old.
That’s especially true this year, after GRCC didn’t field a team in 2022. And Regner is savoring every moment.
“Last year was heartbreaking for sure,” Regner said. “I was really looking forward to playing but (former) Coach (Molly) McKinney made the best out of the situation. We continued to practice even without a season, and I focused on strengthening my body for this season.”
When new head coach Chuck White and assistant coach Steve Roersma were hired to head up GRCC softball, they and Regner made an instant connection.
“Coach White and Roersma have made a significant impact on the program,” she said. “Coach White has improved every single pitch that I have and pushes me to be better every day. The coaches have given me a new level of confidence both on the mound and in the batter's box.”
White said Regner is “a great teammate and a competitor.”
“Izzy works on things until she can’t get it wrong and picks up things quickly,” White said. “The team has instant swagger whenever she’s on the bump.”
And though she will wear the Raider colors for only a single season (she is being recruited by numerous NAIA and NCAA four-year programs and will play at the next level in 2024), she said she has loved her time at GRCC.
“I think we have good competition that pushes us to improve every game,” she said. “I also love seeing everyone's improvements throughout the season and great relationships being made.”
Her classroom experience has been equally terrific, she said, and she will be graduating this month with an associate degree in business which will set her up for an eventual bachelor’s degree in business administration and then, she said, a career still to be determined.
Before that happens though, there’s a season to finish, more games to start, and, she hopes, a few more swings and misses.
This story was reported by Phil de Haan.