MUSKEGON TWP. - The Reeths-Puffer softball team obviously has good pitching. Teams don’t win 33 games and conference and district championships without it.
But opponents still have a lot of good hitters, and sometimes they get the barrel on the ball and pound it into the outfield.
That’s where defense becomes important, and that’s Natalie Kunnen’s specialty.
If a fly ball is hit anywhere in the vicinity of center field, she’s likely to get to it and turn the play into a routine out.
The R-P senior is responsible for 19 putouts this year – that’s six innings worth of outs plus one – and they include a lot of well-hit balls that other high school outfielders wouldn’t have caught.
R-P's Natalie Kunnen
“She reads the ball like no other outfielder I have ever seen before,” R-P head coach Sarah Bayle said about Kunnen. “We call her the vacuum in the outfield. She gets to balls that really shouldn’t be caught and she does it with ease.”
Kunnen said she moved to the outfield full-time in her middle school years and fell in love with it.
There’s nothing she likes more than chasing down and catching balls that look certain to drop in for hits.
“I have been outfield for as long as I can remember,” said Kunnen, who has played and started at the varsity level for all four years of high school. “I just want to go out there and catch balls and making diving plays. That’s been my thing.
"You never know where the ball is going to be hit. You don’t know if you’re going to have to spring backward or go up and dive to catch it. Just the idea of beating the ball to the ground makes me want to go out and play.”
Kunnen chases down a fly ball. Photo/Jeremy Clark
Kunnen has also been successful at the plate this season, with a very nice .317 batting average. She has developed into a power hitter with 16 singles, 11 doubles, three triples and three home runs.
She started with three hits in a season-opening doubleheader sweep of Mona Shores. She had three hits, including a homer, in the championship game of the Hamilton Invitational. She had three hits and three RBIs in a victory over Holland.
Her overall performance earned Kunnen All-Conference and All-District honors this season.
Kunnen said she's been slumping at the plate lately, but she’s still very capable of producing in big games, like she did with two hits in a crucial pre-district victory over Mona Shores.
“I’ve had a lot of strikeouts lately, but I’m not in my head about it,” she said. “I am just trying to make contact and get on base.”
Kunnen gets her bat on the ball. Photo/Jeremy Clark
The season has been an exciting one for Kunnen and her R-P teammates.
They won the Greater Muskegon Athletic Association City Tournament and a share of the O-K Green conference championship, and last weekend defeated Muskegon and Grand Haven to capture the team’s first district championship since 2019.
Along the way they have put together the best record in R-P softball history at 33-4-1.
Now the Rockets will compete in a Division 1 regional tournament on Saturday at Hudsonville. They will play Byron Center at 10 a.m., with the winner advancing to the 2 p.m. finals against either Hudsonville (ranked No. 2 in the state) or Rockford.
The regional champion will move on to Tuesday’s state quarterfinals, where things start to get really exciting.
Kunnen circles under a fly ball. Photo/Jeremy Clark
“Last year we were good, and this year all the puzzle pieces have fallen together,” Kunnen said. “We play so well as a team. I would say we are a pretty close team. We all get along and we always have fun at practice. It’s just a fun group.
“There’s a lot of amazing leadership and grit on this team, and I think this year has set the pace for years to come.”
As pumped up as the Rockets are about regionals, most of them know this is likely just the beginning of a very promising journey.
That’s because there are only four seniors on the team, and a ton of standouts will be returning next spring.
But for Kunnen and her fellow seniors - Kaylee Jones, Magan Barmes and Emme Buzzell - this is the climax of their careers.
Kunnen, Jones, Barmes and Buzzell broke into youth softball together years ago, they've played four years of varsity together, and they've become very close friends along the way,
Kunnen is one of four seniors on the R-P softball squad. Photo/Jeremy Clark
They know the Rockets’ next loss will be the end of their varsity experience, and they want to keep fighting that off for as long as possible, and maybe win another trophy or two while they're at it.
“It’s our last season, so I would like us to go as far as we can,” Kunnen said. “I think we could make a real run. The competition is going to be tough, but we said the same thing about Grand Haven (in last weekend’s district finals). I think they will be real close games.”
The end will be even more difficult for Kunnen, who is more than good enough to play college softball but has decided to end her organized sports career and concentrate on her studies at Western Michigan University.
She plans on becoming a special education teacher, which has become a passion for her.
“It’s been fun,” she said about her softball career. “I love the sport. But I want to get ready for my career and just see what life brings. I have always been drawn toward helping people. I have done an internship the past two years in special needs classes around the school district, and I have loved working with the kids.”