STRATFORD–Shyan Rolle is not a ghost. She’s alive and well and is playing softball for the Stratford Red Devils.
It just so happens that sometimes Rolle is there. And, then, just like that, she’s not.
Usually, it happens when she’s standing at first base. The pitcher winds up, delivers and just like that, Rolle is gone. By the time the dust settles, she’s at second base.
Give her another pitch or two, she’ll likely be at third base—just 60 feet and a couple of seconds from giving her team another run.
Rolle is a special kind of athlete, a game-changing athlete the second she gets on base, which she does often, immediately creating havoc for opposing pitchers, catchers and defenses.
“Shyan has the instincts of people I’ve only seen at a Division-1 baseball, softball or professional level when she’s on the bases,” Stratford head coach Gary Sherrick said. “It is unbelievable.”
And it happens a lot.
Rolle, you see, is a member of the Triple Crown-100 Club, if there was such a thing. She’s had more than 100 hits in her career. She has scored more than 100 runs.
And perhaps even more amazing than all that is the fact that Rolle has successfully stolen more than 100 bases in her career.
In fact, Rolle is 104-for-107 in stolen base attempts in her career.
“I just like the thrill of it, because most catchers always think they can throw me out,” Rolle said during a recent practice inside the SHS gymnasium. “Sometimes it’s just the fun of it, because knowing that I’m fast enough to knock that thought out of their minds most of the times, and I really haven’t been caught a lot.”
Get this, though: Rolle never played softball until arriving at Stratford High as a freshman three-plus seasons ago.
“Honestly, when I was younger, I’d say I’m just very athletic,” Rolle said. “I played a lot of sports. I was just a really athletic kid and I worked out a lot. My speed just comes from my putting the work in, just doing my thing.”
Rolle did play baseball when she was younger, so she did understand many base running intangibles.
Softball, however, remains a different game so she had to tweak her base running acumen with Sherrick’s help.
“Her speed is off the charts,” Sherrick said. “Her God-given gifts are just off the chart.”
Sherrick said one of Rolle’s highlights was scoring from second base on a routine sacrifice bunt.
“What’s mind-blowing to me is she just has that ‘it’ when it comes to running the bases,” Sherrick said.
As a freshman, Rolle was Stratford’s starting center fielder, and she owned the outfield from gap to gap making just one error—one Sherrick admitted might not be fully deserved as it was a tough play.
The following season, though, the Red Devils had needs and Sherrick was forced to tweak things on the defensive end.
The biggest move was bringing Rolle in to play shortstop, a place she has been ever since.
“I realized I needed to beef up my infield because we had a freshman pitcher come in that was more ground ball inducing,” Sherrick said. “So then I made a switch. You got to play with the personnel I had, so moving her in was what was best for the team.”
Rolle wondered about the move, but attacked the change the way she attacks a journey around the basepaths.
“I definitely was worried. I felt like outfield was definitely my position, but I wanted to try something new because I felt like if I was so good in the outfield first year playing that I could try something new and be good at that too,” Rolle said. “I would just try it out and it went pretty good for me and it wasn’t really a hard change. I really enjoy the infield now and the people I play next to because we talk a lot, make a lot of jokes during the game, so it’s a fun switch.”
Her career is winding down. One game, one base at a time.
Sherrick has watched Rolle go from the fresh-faced freshman newbie to the game, growing into a full-fledged leader making a different for the program’s next generation.
“She is just a special kid,” Sherrick said. “She’s a quiet kid. She has grown to a whole other level, on and off the field. She’s smiling a lot more. She’s a leader this year. I’ve been waiting for this. I wish it happened earlier, but I’ve been waiting for this. And now she’s just finishing up her senior year strong.”
Stratford is 6-6 on the season and has eight games remaining—five of which are lined up back-to-back-to-back all week long.
The Red Devils need two more wins to make the postseason and extend the careers of Rolle and her fellow seniors.
Rolle just wants to give her team, her program, everything she has left because she knows how much softball has changed her life.
“I feel like softball has helped me grow as a person a lot,” Rolle said. “I had really bad grades. I wasn’t the best student, but as I came onto the team and started playing softball, it’s like these girls are like a family to me. And just wanting to be here helped me to improve as a person, become a better person, get my grades up. I’m an A-B student now, but softball is just like, I don’t know. It feels like my life. I’m just always here. I’m always having fun with the girls.”
Which is why when her career is over and Rolle goes off to pursue becoming an ultrasound technician, she won’t become a ghost.
She’ll come back and watch the Red Devils play, supporting her sisters of softball outside of the basepaths instead of on them there Shyan Rolle stole the hearts of her coaches and teammates in addition to the 104 bases (and counting) she has swiped a long the way.
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