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Artesia ace RyLee Crandall remains dominant despite lost season
RyLee Crandall gave up only two earned runs her entire junior season with the Artesia Bulldogs. (Credit: Greg Brown)

Artesia ace RyLee Crandall remains dominant despite lost season

ARTESIA, N.M. (BVM) — The impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on high school sports was felt in New Mexico more than in most places. As one of the country’s last states to be given the green light to resume athletic competitions earlier this year, the New Mexico Activities Association (NMAA) was forced to squeeze 13 sports — normally split between fall, spring and winter seasons — into a four-month time frame.

Softball was one of the sports least impacted for the 2020-21 school year, as teams were still able to play something close to a normal schedule, unlike football teams, which were limited to a maximum of four games with no postseason. But softball lost an entire season in 2020 when the pandemic wiped out all spring sports across the country.

Despite having a full season washed away, however, at least one thing remained as true as it was before COVID-19 arrived: RyLee Crandall and the Artesia Bulldogs are the best the state has to offer when it comes to high school softball. Artesia captured its third consecutive Class 4A state title this spring with the New Mexico Gatorade Softball Player of the Year showing why she was considered to be the best player in the state even prior to a sophomore season that never happened. 

The 5-foot-7 junior pitcher and infielder seemingly picked up right where she left off as a freshman in 2019 when she helped lead Artesia to its second straight championship. In 91.1 innings pitched this past spring, Crandall gave up only two earned runs (0.15 ERA), struck out 195 batters while walking only eight, and posted eight shutouts including three no-hitters and two perfect games. And Crandall’s numbers as a hitter were no less impressive. She batted .507 with 26 of her 34 hits going for extra bases, including 10 home runs. She slugged 1.268 with an astounding OPS of 1.894 and struck out only three times all season.

On June 26, Crandall capped her junior season in fittingly dominant fashion, firing a one-hit shutout as the Bulldogs beat Gallup 4-0 at the University of New Mexico to capture a third straight state title that they had to wait an extra year for.

“Just to see our end goal come to reality was just amazing,” Crandall said. “The whole team sacrificed so much and it all paid off. … It was a struggle to stay in that good mindset to be ready but I think in the end we were just ready to play and we were going to just roll with the punches and deal with what we had to deal with just in order for us to play because we wanted to be back so badly.”

Crandall committed to Baylor University last fall. (Courtesy: RyLee Crandall)

RyLee is the second Crandall to win the state’s Gatorade award, following in the footsteps of her older sister Kali, who earned the honor in 2018 after winning the third state title of her high school career — between two schools — and leading Artesia to its first of three consecutive championships. Like Kali, now a soon-to-be junior at Oklahoma Christian University who was named an NCAA Division II All-American this past spring, RyLee will also be continuing her softball career beyond high school. The Class of 2022 recruit verbally committed to Division I Baylor University last fall.

“It just has a great culture,” RyLee said of Baylor. “It has a Christian aspect to it that I was looking for. The coaches they just brought me into their family so much. They just have such genuine care for me and my future and I just felt like something so special was happening there and I just felt God’s hands pushing me to go in that direction.”

But before RyLee heads East to Waco, Texas, she’ll have another year to add to her legacy at Artesia while sharpening her skills for the Big 12.

“It’s really exciting because I want to go to Baylor being in my prime and being the best I can be because I know that once I get to Baylor, I’m going to get so much better and learn so much more from (the coaches),” RyLee said. “So I just have to keep setting new goals for myself and just try and compete with myself and not let up my work ethic because it’s going to take a lot to be good at Baylor and compete at that level.”