Prep Softball --CBA's Taylor Puetz signs with North Carolina

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on November 16, 2017 11:10 AM

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PIKEVILLE -- The setting, trimmed in blue and ornamented with balloons, was familiar.

So too were the faces surrounding Charles B. Aycock senior Taylor Puetz, who watched with a diverse range of  emotion on Monday as the senior carefully penned a national letter-of-intent to play softball next year at the University of North Carolina.

Each, naturally, relished the moment differently.  

There was the grandmother, doting at every turn, walking back and forth between the dais and a casual stand of onlookers in the school's new gymnasium, checking and re-checking things, making sure all items relevant to the ceremony were just so.

There were a few family friends, such as Crystal Overby,  who floated back and forth between camera setups and F-stops to get the moment captured in perfect exposure from every angle.

There was also the travel ball coach, Junior Pearce.

He was the one who always made sure the talented left-hander was working on her craft, or had a roster spot -- usually with his Wildcards Elite troupe -- or enough money for junk food and sodas between ball games on weekends.

He just smiled.

Then there was the mother, Amber, who gazed at the moment with the most perspective -- and who, when asked to quantify what it was like for a Division I program to recognize her daughter's hard work -- gave the universal distress signal for the proud mother of an accomplished athlete.

Hands clutched.

Eyes darting toward the ceiling, batting quickly.

"Honestly, I can't put it into words," she remarked. "The coaches at UNC are what made us fall in love with that university... she is my only child and my entire world, but I have no fear of her going without a thing while she's there -- I know they are going to take care of her. I wouldn't want her to go play anywhere or for anyone else other than Coach (Donna) Papa and her assistants."

Nor did Puetz, whose powder-blue tunnel vision broke focus just long enough to take a visit to the campus of UNC-Charlotte -- primarily as a courtesy measure to her family's cries for her to make a comprehensive decision.

When you know, it seems, you just know.

"Division I schools are mainly worried about how good of an athlete you are," Puetz said. "But the coaches there (at UNC) are like family, they're really close.. It makes you feel like you're home."

And while there might be an adjustment period to life without her Aycock teammates and longtime hitting coach Roger May --  whom Puetz credits for being in this position -- current CBA head coach Lavon Matthews doesn't see any struggles in his star's immediate future.

"Whatever Carolina tags her do," Matthews said,  "whoever their competition is, I don't know what they have returning... if they beat her out, they're going to have to be good."