Sarah Wright’s moments of perfection (or near perfection) come more frequently as the days, weeks and years progress. Those moments have increased the frequency of the accolades that, maybe naturally, have followed.

Take this week, when Wright found out within the same 24 hours that she had been named The News Tribune’s All-Area softball player of the year and the state Gatorade player of the year. Those awards capped a season in which the Kentwood sophomore hurled the Conquerors all the way to the Class 4A state tournament for only the second time since 2009.

“She’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime type of player,” Kentwood coach Gary Graf said. “I started coaching in 1975, have coached football and other sports. She is as great an athlete as I’ve ever coached. And she’s such a good leader. I always run my teams as a leadership program rather than a softball program. When you do that, you have players who really step up and she’s done that.”

Wright’s primary contributions to Kentwood’s run in 2022 came within the pitching circle. Of the Conquerors 21 victories, she was responsible for 18 of them, while posting a miniscule 0.33 earned run average.

Kentwood went into the state tournament unblemished at 20-0 before losing to Mount Si and Redmond, wrapped around a consolation bracket victory over Hanford. Overall, she threw 128 total innings and recorded 330 strikeouts.

Her signature game of the season came against Skyview in the bi-district championship. Pitching against select team teammate Maddie Milhorn, Wright threw a no-hitter that included 18 of 21 outs via the strikeout while blasting the first of her two home runs off her NW Bullets teammate for Kentwood’s 20^th straight win. That was one of the eight total no-hitters Wright tossed this spring.

And it really is just the start of things.

Division I colleges can’t even start talking to Wright until the fall, when her junior year begins. Not to mention she and the Conquerors have two more tries at getting to state.

While Wright may still be at the beginning, the actual start came when Wright was eight years old.

“When I was younger, a few of my friends were joining little league,” Wright said. “A lot of them stopped playing. I just always really liked the energy around the sport.”

What began almost on a whim quickly became a competitive passion.

“The only reason I started pitching was that nobody else on the team wanted to pitch,” Wright said.

While virtually every opponent she faces these days would probably like a time machine to go back and pay someone to keep Wright from ever getting into the circle in the first place, her beginnings were less than auspicious.

“My first game, I think I hit like eight batters with pitches,” Wright said.

But, even at 8 years old, Wright’s natural competitiveness kicked in moving forward from that point.

“She is just a great athlete,” Graf said. “She wrestles on the side (making it to Mat Classic at 145 pounds this past winter). Whatever she’s doing, even if it’s tiddlywinks, she’s going to win. You can’t teach that. It’s just in there.”

Wright took up the challenge of the pitching circle with a vengeance. Quickly, she became feared in the circle for her successes and not because of the danger of batters coming away with softball-shaped bruises.

“What you see now is the result of thousands of hours of work,” Wright said. “Now in games, it looks like I know what I’m doing. But for the future, I’m not perfect yet and I don’t think I ever will be.”

It hasn’t kept Wright from pursuing that perfection, though.

“In practice, I always make sure to get focused,” Wright said. “It’s about repetition of the right mechanics. If I miss, then throwing 5-10 more pitches in the same spot to get the muscle memory.”

Wright works to raise her velocity, yes. But she understands there are limitations for every pitcher because not everyone can physically throw as hard as others.

“Speed is important,” Wright said. “But it’s also really important to have spin, to throw breaking pitches. Spin makes it even more deceptive. I probably threw 75 percent breaking pitches this season, and it’s what made me as dominant as I was in high school ball.

Wright constantly works at honing her craft, which has allowed Graf and the Kentwood assistant coaches to keep their attention on other aspects of the team.

“She came in with the skills and the knowledge, which is pretty unusual,” Graf said. “She did not need any real coaching from me. She possesses some premier confidence that comes from having the skills to back it up, but she’s stayed very humble. Any distraction from her being focused just doesn’t work for her.”