RINGGOLD, Ga. - Taylor Chadwick didn't know it at the time, but what to her was a typical hard slide into home plate would change her life.
The Ringgold High School senior signed a softball scholarship with Georgia State University last week, but it was one moment in a collection of thousands during a summer tournament that connected the athlete with her school.
Georgia State assistant coach Todd Downes was in attendance to watch current Northwest Whitfield junior Alyssa Ward when Georgia Force teammate Chadwick captured their attention with a hard dive to the plate.
"I guess I caught their eye," Chadwick said. "They watched me for a couple of more tournaments, and then they offered. I really didn't know much about them at first, but we went down there and saw how they played and I thought it was a great fit."
Chadwick, a four-year starter for a Ringgold program that finished in the top five in the state all four seasons, including two runner-up finishes, is a self-professed perfectionist. So much so that dad Shane, who has helped coach her throughout her summer ball years, has had to make her put down the weights or quit fielding grounders.
"She has an excellent work ethic, and it's not uncommon for her to ask to go out and work on her swing or to field some ground balls after feeling she was doing something wrong," he said. "I've told her at times, 'Taylor, you're a teenager. At some time you need to go out and have some fun.'
"But she says this is how she has fun."
Reminded of the story, Taylor Chadwick laughed.
"I like working out and working on my game," she said. "I guess it comes from taking gymnastics when I was little. I don't know, I guess I just always want to improve."
She's also always wanted to play for a top-level college program, though Georgia State was never on the radar early. Once she learned the Division I Sun Belt Conference member was a program on the rise, she was sold.
"They are getting to be a bigger program and they just finished third in Sun Belt," said Chadwick, who hit .484 for Ringgold this past season. "The coaches are great and I'm excited about what they are doing with their program."
The academic part of it was an even easier sell on her parents.
"We definitely are getting the best of both worlds," said Shane Chadwick, who added that the proximity of the Atlanta campus was another plus. "For us, the academic part is everything.
"For these kids playing softball, there is nowhere to go after college to make a career of it. Some of the programs we looked at are softball first and education second. It's important as parents that education comes first at Georgia State."
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22.