After finishing her senior year at Cardington, Mikayla Linkous will be moving on to California University of Pennsylvania, where she will play softball and major in biology with plans to go into nursing.
“I picked it because I absolutely loved the campus and coaches,” she said. “They have a super-successful program and have won two national championships.”
While she had interest in other programs, after making visits, she decided that the Division II school in Pennsylvania was the best destination for her.
“I had three other visits,” she said. “This was my second visit. Then I went to the other two and compared them to California University and that’s where I wanted to go.”
Linkous said that she spent roughly three years looking at schools, but had plans to play softball in college since she was in seventh grade and was a ball girl for the Pirate program, putting her in a position to see other successful players move on to the next level. She is looking forward to her role on her new team.
“We’re looking between outfield and middle infield,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll have me bat, but if not, I’ll be a pinch runner and move from there as the years go on.”
Linkous, who also was accepted into California University’s honors program, is looking forward to making the move out of Ohio to a new state.
“That I’m going out of state,” she said in response to what she’s most looking forward to. “It will be like starting from scratch all over again and making a new name for myself.”
Linkous said that during her time at Cardington, she has gotten better at being a team leader. She’ll miss a lot of the activities she had with her teammates through her time in softball, as well as basketball and cross country.
“Definitely game days,” she said. “How we all would get so hyped up. We’d get so excited with each other. I’ll miss the people I got to do it with. It will be a completely new experience.”
