A dominant 12 months has propelled Elsa Morrison into the elite of softball’s 2025 recruiting class. Sporting Her’s Jeff Cheshire caught up with the University of Tennessee commit.
Elsa Morrison sprang up from her catcher’s squat. The pitch was coming in high and, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the runner take off from first base. Her left hand rose up to pluck the ball out of the air at the peak of her jump. In the same motion she transferred it to her right, switching her feet before landing, and rocketed the ball to second base. Despite her considerable head-start, the runner was well-short as she ran into the tag. You’re out. Sit down. Thank you very much for the opportunity. It was a showing of the University of Tennessee commit’s freakish athleticism, skill, IQ and competitiveness, all rolled into a few breathtaking seconds. While Morrison admits a little bit of luck in that specific play, it is those contests where she thrives.
”My job is to not let that runner move,” she said. ”If she tries to, it’s my job to get her out. If she tries to steal, it’s competitive. It’s like ‘you’re off, it’s my turn, let’s go, let’s do this thing’. If I make a bad throw and you beat me, you beat me. But if I get you out and I make a good play, it’s the same way, it’s like ‘go and sit down’.”
And yet it speaks volumes about the quality of the Farragut High School junior that plays like that barely rate a mention among her plaudits. Perhaps that is understandable, too. The numbers are just that eye-catching.
The catcher-short stop committed to the University of Tennessee following a scarcely believable sophomore high school season – her first in Tennessee, having moved from Carmel, Indiana, when her father secured a job there just over a year ago. She finished the season with a .617 batting average, a school record 23 home runs, 52 runs and 71 RBIs. She was walked 53 times, 38 of them intentionally, while only striking out twice. Behind the plate she threw out seven of the 11 runners that tried to steal on her.
It was such dominance on both sides that teams stopped pitching to her, and stopped stealing on her. It was also such dominance that led her to be named the Tennessee Gatorade State Player of the Year. In that she beat out quality players two years her senior and admits to being shocked at being nominated, let alone winning. Yet it has been just one of several accolades that has catapulted her into the national softball consciousness.
Congrats to Texas Bombers Gold 18u player Elsa Morrison and her family. Elsa has committed to play softball for the University of Tennessee! #bombernation #collegecommit pic.twitter.com/gNswq3q5UG
— Bombers Fastpitch (@bombers_fp) October 6, 2023
Morrison has sky-rocketed up the ranking boards in the past 12 months, notably coming in tied for second in Extra Innings’ latest recruit rankings for the class of 2025. She won Player of the Tournament at the prestigious Colorado Sparkler tournament, and has made several other All-Tournament teams over the summer with her Texas Bombers 18U travel team. Amongst it all, she still finds it hard to wrap her head around being ”good” at what she does.
”I don’t know, it’s weird to talk about,” she said. I still don’t think of myself as a Tennessee State Player of the Year, or a Colorado Sparkler Player of the Year. I’ve seen my highs and my lows. I’m like, yeah I wouldn’t give it to that one. I guess that’s personal thing and I’m being hard on myself. I’ve had people ask ‘when did you realise you were good?’. ‘I’m like ‘I don’t know how to answer that question’.”
As hard as those lows can be, it was the lowest of those moments that helped shape her into what she has become. She was at a tournament in California with a new team as a 12U player, when she went 1-20. That was her. Elsa Morrison – future No2 recruit in her class, University of Tennessee commit, State Player of the Year as a sophomore – out on 19 of her 20 at bats.
”I was really mental with that part of it,” Morrison said. “I was like ‘you have to get a hit, you’re going 1-20 right now. You’re doing bad, you’re making errors in the field, you’re getting moved down the line up. You get a hit you get moved up, you strike out you get moved down’. It was that aspect of it that was really getting to me mentally. I couldn’t perform like I’ve practiced and like I’ve done in the past.”
She turned to music, specifically the song Rut by the Killers, to help her through. At the end of the season, she left the team and joined an 18U squad, bringing a new mentality of ”just do you, just have fun”. It was a turning point. She hit her first home run, began to see more success and began getting attention from colleges. An analytic person, she turned her attention away from batting average, focusing on good at bats, on base percentage and slugging percentage. All three take into account things that batting average do not, a better reflection of your contribution.
”From that, I’ve learned you fail most of the game. There’s so much of it you can’t avoid,” Morrison said of the experience.
”After you swing the bat, you can’t tell the ball where to go, it goes where it goes. You can only control what you can control.
”You can’t control umpires, you can’t control bad hops, you can’t control what play outfielders, middle infielders make, no matter how good or bad it is. There’s so many uncontrollable factors that I think I figured out and I learnt, that shouldn’t really change how you play the game.”
She has learnt how to handle those tough moments – which came with learning how to handle the best ones, as well. Softball is a tough game, mentally as much as physically, after all.
”You walk off and you go into the dugout,” she says of getting out. “And then you sit there and watch your team mate succeed. And you sit there and you’re thinking about it to yourself, ‘I should’ve done this different, I should have swung at that pitch’. You have to let it go. That’s the part of I figured it out the most, after something good or bad.”
”If the worst of the worst happens, ignore it. If you hit a grand slam, sorry, ignore it. It’s hard to think about on either side, but you have to stay neutral on both aspects. You can’t get too up there and looking only for the good, because when there’s bad it’s going to plummet you and you’re going to stay down there until you do something really good. You don’t want these big waves, you want to stay consistent.”
Her ability to embrace that comes through in the way she talks about the rest of her game. Her approach at the plate, or more specifically her discipline at the plate, is key in that. She is picky about her pitches and a talk-through of an at bat shows every bit of her intelligence and ability to make a pitcher throw her the ball she wants to hit.
The acceptance of the uncontrollable comes through, as well. Notably, she would rather strike out looking than swinging – that is a difference of opinion with the umpire, rather than getting beat. When she does connect, though, the effortless power becomes plainly obvious. All of it comes from a different background, having initially began the sport when she followed her brother into baseball aged four.
”Fun fact about me, my whole softball is from baseball. My swing’s compact, it’s short and to the point, it’s not long. I’ve never had a big long finished, or a big open gate stance. I’m closed off now, I’ve changed in that aspect a little bit. It’s things that work for me and things I’ve found most beneficial for me to help me hunt the pitches I want, and to help me hold back on pitches I don’t. It’s plate discipline and knowing your swing and knowing which balls you’re best at hitting.”
It all came to pay off come 12.01am on September 1 – the literal minute colleges could begin recruiting the class of 2025. Morrison’s first call, from Louisiana State University, came through 60 seconds after the recruiting window opened. It had been one of four colleges she took an official visit to – Texas, Florida State and Tennessee being the others. Tennessee had long been a front-runner, having been going to camps there for several years prior to moving to the state, she had entered the process with an open mind. That had made it a difficult decision.
In the end there were a variety of factors that led her to choosing to be a Lady Vol – where she will play and attend classes in Knoxville, just 20 minutes from where she goes to school now. It remained ”a little bit surreal” to have come through that process. She has big goals for when she gets there. Her eyes are on the starting catcher position from day one, while being named an All-American as a freshman is another lofty ambition. On her way she hopes to defend her State Player of the Year title, something only a handful of athletes have done. If she could win it three times, she would become the first softball player to have done that.
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