The softball community is in mourning after the shockingly quick death of a high school standout player last week.

A week ago Sunday, April 5, Madison Small, a senior second baseman at Broad Run (Ashburn, Va.) High, was playing catch with her father, Tim.

Monday night she fell ill and by Tuesday morning the 18-year-old had died. Within hours, more than 200 classmates, family members, teammates and friends showed up for a memorial.

Over the last few days, it was announced that Madison had died of bacterial meningitis, although doctors were quick to point out that no other cases have been identified.

The Washington Post quoted one of the athlete’s close friends, Devan Rook, saying Madison first became ill Monday afternoon.

“She went to urgent care in the afternoon, and they sent her home — didn’t think anything was wrong with her,” said Rook, 18, a fellow Broad Run senior who was classmates with Small every year since preschool. “In the middle of the night, she woke up complaining of headaches and stuff, and they took her to [Inova] Loudoun Hospital and realized it was pretty serious. They couldn’t handle it there, so they medevac-ed her over to [Inova Fairfax Hospital]. At that point, she wasn’t doing too well, and several of her organs were shutting down.”

At the memorial, the teen’s father spoke as did Broad Run softball coach Ed Steele who told how Small had the game-winning RBI in the team’s most recent state tournament win in 2012 when Madison was a freshman.

He also told how she had to have a rib removed before her senior season so she could continue playing softball.

“The person I’m going to miss isn’t the person with all the hits and so forth,” Steele told the Post. “It’s the person who made every practice fun and helped everybody, even the lowliest freshman who looked up to her.”

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Here’s a video done last week by the local ABC affiliate…