Oswego junior Jaelynn Anthony is the 2025 Record Newspapers softball Player of the Year

Jaelynn Anthony is completely confident in just being Jaelynn Anthony.

Just ask her mom.

As Oswego’s junior pitcher prepared for a supersectional game with defending state runner-up Marist, Anthony’s mom reminded her how good the opponent was, a lineup stacked with Division I commits.

Anthony’s answer?

Those hitters are 16 and 17-year-old girls, just like me. No competition if the pitching is good enough.

And then Anthony came a strike away from throwing a no-hitter.

“What makes Jaelynn special is she doesn’t make big moments bigger than they are,” Oswego co-coach Annie Scaramuzzi said. “She is confident that she doesn’t have to do anything more than being her.”

Who is Jaelynn Anthony?

She is a team cut-up, at her best when she is the most loose. Along with senior catcher Kiyah Chavez, they are two of the most silly, non-serious softball players that Scaramuzzi has ever been around, joking and competing at their best in the most high-pressure moments.

“She is just so unapologetically herself,” Scaramuzzi said.

Anthony also is one of the best two-way threats around, a force in the circle and at the plate, a driving force in Oswego softball’s run to its first state title.

The Purdue commit posted a 22-1 record with a 1.55 ERA and 193 strikeouts over 139⅔ innings as Oswego went 38-2 and won the Class 4A championship. She also batted .483 with 57 hits, 13 homers, 16 doubles and 57 RBIs.

She is the Record Newspapers Player of the Year.

Anthony, like many of her teammates, was in tears in the aftermath of the 4-1 win over Barrington in the Class 4A final.

The moment was bittersweet.

“We were obviously very excited at what we did, but it was mostly sad to be done – we went out the best way we could have," Anthony said. “We were all in shock to be the first to win a state title at Oswego. We were all very happy, all blown away at how well we did.”

It’s no coincidence that Oswego’s journey to a state title coincided with the arrival of its strong-armed, happy-go-lucky junior.

But it took time.

Freshman year Anthony said she was asked if she wanted to play JV for the opportunity of more playing time, or play up with varsity. Anthony chose varsity, desiring to learn from the older girls, but she didn’t play the first couple games.

Her first game, against Lockport on Oswego’s freshman field under the lights, was one of Anthony’s worst games.

“My first time, getting the nerves out,” Anthony said. “I don’t think they really understood that I had played a lot.”

Anthony is indeed an athlete, with athletic ability in the genes.

Her mom played softball collegiately at North Central and Benedictine. Anthony’s dad played basketball in high school at East Aurora and in college at Lamar.

Anthony herself played basketball for five years as a kid, more than softball. She also competed in dance and gymnastics.

“I think when I started playing travel softball when I was 12, mom was like you have to pick gymnastics or travel softball,” Anthony said.

She’s always been a pitcher and a hitter, for travel and high school.

Anthony slugged an at the time program record 13 homers as a sophomore, and matched that total this year. She holds a career batting average of .409, and had two hits and three RBIs in the state semifinal win.

“It’s a very unique type of thing, you don’t see pitchers that can hit very well in college,” Anthony said. “If I’m not pitching well there is something I can do well.”

Anthony’s pitching, however, was particularly clutch in the postseason.

She pitched all 48 innings of Oswego’s championship run, giving up 23 hits while striking out 70 and posting a 0.70 ERA.

Anthony tossed shutouts in both regional games, and came a strike away from a no-hitter in the supersectional against Marist. Anthony, who holds the program record for wins with 47, one-hit Marist 5-1, then threw a four-hitter in the championship game against Barrington.

“Jae gets better in bigger games,” Scaramuzzi said. “Jae just has the confidence to go out and do it because she’s done it before.”

Anthony topped out at a personal best 72 miles per hour in the win over Barrington, one of the many characteristics that a former pitcher in Scaramuzzi sees that makes her ace so dominant.

“Obviously she throws heat; you rarely comes across a pitcher that throws in the low 70s,” Scaramuzzi said. “That, accompanied by the movement on her curveball and the jump she gets on the rise, that speed with a deceptive change. That’s hard to compete against. She just did an incredible job mixing her pitches and throwing to her strengths.”

Together with Oswego’s 10 seniors, Anthony realized unfinished business after taking third at state last year.

She was driven to play as long as possible with that group, particularly with her catcher who she formed a unique bond with.

“Jae and Kiyah, they were the heart and soul of this group, them along with our incredible group of seniors,” Scaramuzzi said. “They had a mission from the start of the season. Jae got better and better as the season went along. She was fighting for every single pitch to have another one with Kiyah.

“One of the things I said in the speech at our banquet is a pitcher is nothing without a catcher that makes her look good and a catcher is nothing without a pitcher competing with her entire heart. That was Jae and Kiyah.”