It took a while, but 2017 pitcher Lauren Mathis finally got her wish as she committed last Saturday to the University of Georgia – the school she’s wanted to play for since she was seven years old.

The funny thing is, it took a bit of a circuitous route for her to get there and for a while she was actually committed to the Bulldogs’ rivals in the SEC, the National Champion Florida Gators.

Lauren, who was rated as the No. 7 overall prospect in the nation in the Full Count Softball 2017 Hot 100, saw her recruiting stock blow in the last half of 2014 when major colleges all over the nation saw her amazing spins, which are not only the best in her class, but arguably the best in all of club softball right now.

“Her spin rates on her screwball, rise, and offspeed drop are all in the 32-36 range,” says her father, Wes, who coaches Lauren on his Windermere Wildfire-Mathis team.

“Lauren’s screwball has a late break and at the last minute breaks as much as a foot and a half.  As a batter, you get off the plate and she’ll throw the curve.  She can also throw a hard drop and offspeed drop to keep you off balance.”

The Florida native has been pitching since she was seven years old and her Wildfire team coached by her father has grown up together since their coach pitch days.

“It’s the same team now as it basically was then,” Mathis states, “and in 2012 we went to the 2012 Little League World Series and finished second.  We might have won but I had to sit Lauren because she pitched in the semi’s and because of limited innings she wasn’t able to throw in the championship game.”

What’s interesting about the Windermere Wildfire program is it is mostly a collection of local players from Central Florida.

“We’re basically a Little League team playing travel ball and consist of girls who come from the Windermere Little League,” says the coach. “We’ve done pretty good for having mostly local girls from Central Florida, with almost all of them from within a 30 mile radius.”

Though just a sophomore in high school, Lauren has already had an accomplished pitching career and has had success throwing against local state colleges and even the Puerto Rican National team.

Amazingly, in all her years of experience in the circle, she’s only given up two home runs—one in this year’s ASA Nationals and one in the ASA Nationals the year before… that’s it.  This past summer she helped her dad’s 16U team make the title game and in the semi’s had a 21 strikeout performance.

Lauren’s not a fireball pitcher—she throws in the 58-60 mph range—but after her summer and fall performances, the colleges quickly came knocking on the door.

The Univ. of Florida got a huge early advantage when Lauren opened eyes at a Gator pitching camp.

“When she went there,” remembers Coach Mathis, “Lauren went from 1 to 100 very quickly.”

The next week she went on an unofficial visit to the Gainesville campus and it wasn’t long before the Gator coaches offered. Lauren, being a Central Florida girl, quickly committed.

“I think she thought Florida was her dream school,” explains her father, “because they offered first, but Georgia was always her dream school.”

However, the Univ. of Georgia hadn’t responded when Coach Mathis sent tapes and info on Lauren and the family thought the Bulldogs weren’t interested, especially when it appeared the SEC school had already taken a pair of 2017 pitchers.

Ironically, it was the Gators who helped pave the way for the Lauren and Georgia marriage to take place.

Over the course of the fall, it become apparent that because of a misunderstanding in what Florida could offer Lauren in terms of a scholarship, she wouldn’t be able to sign with the Gators and both sides parted amicably.

Before that happened, however, the Florida coaching staff had suggested that Lauren play for Head Coach Mark Griggs and the Wichita Mustangs, a high level club team that was coming to Florida to play in prestigious events against elite competition.

“Florida called and said Lauren should play with Mark and the Mustangs in the Rising Stars tournament to get the experience playing against good players,” remembers Coach Mathis. “Against one of the best teams in the country, the Corona Angels, she struck out 16 of 18 batters she faced and that helped put her on the map.”

In November, Lauren played with the Mustangs again in the Surf City Pre-Thanksgiving tournament in Southern California and once again lit it up.

By the end of that event, major schools like South Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were very interested in pursuing Lauren, “but the one she wanted was Georgia at the end of the day,” explains her father.

The reason for the Bulldog love is simple: it’s all in the family.

“We come from a long line of Bulldog fans,” West Mathis explains. “Lauren grew up a Bulldog fan and ever since she started playing, she wanted to play at Georgia.”

When the Mathis family explained this to Coach Griggs, he quickly got on the phone to Georgia Head Coach Lu Harris-Champer and conveyed the interest of Lauren and family and emphasized that she is one of the elite pitchers in the country.

Griggs also explained to the Mathis family that the two other 2017 pitchers Georgia has committed could also play other positions, so the door wasn’t closed after all.

“After Mark made contact with Lu and I was able to talk to her, we invited her to watch Lauren play,” recalls Coach Mathis. “She flew down and watched her pitch at Rising Stars where we played 18U Gold and also flew down again at Diamond9 and watched her in a couple of games there.”

The result?

“Coach Lu said, ‘I’ve seen all I need to see, call me on Monday and we’ll see about getting you up here.’”

Late last week, the Mathis family drove the six and a half hours from their home in Windermere, Fla. to the Georgia campus in Athens, Ga. and on Friday sat down with the Georgia staff and got the coveted scholarship offer.

“The coaches encouraged us to come back Saturday morning to watch the pitching practice,” says Lauren’s father.  “We sat there and watched how the pitching coach teaches the pitchers and the tools he uses, including Excel spreadsheets with spin rates and goals to make it like a competition. Lauren liked that and how they used other tools for warm-ups and practice to hit locations.”

Before leaving campus on Saturday, Lauren committed and made it the “dream school” possibility a reality.

But there was another benefit to the trip as well. Wes’s entire family is from Georgia and his father—Lauren’s grandfather—lives 30 miles from the university.

“After the visit to the campus, we also got to have Christmas at my Dad’s house so we killed two birds with stones,” laughs Lauren’s father.

“They had all the lights up and left the tree up so we could have Christmas with the entire family.  We said, ‘It’s so late, you ought to keep the Christmas stuff up for next year!’”