‘Ace of the staff’: G-K’s Brooklyn Pettit guides Eagles to district’s top seed
Between games at a club softball tournament last fall, Brooklyn Pettit’s rise ball was born. The incoming sophomore had never tried the gravity-defying pitch before — but when one friend suggested practicing a new weapon on a whim, Pettit obliged.
“And it actually worked,” she recalled Wednesday.
What began as an experiment roughly eight months ago quickly became one of Pettit’s favorite pitches to throw. Soon enough, she was offering a steady diet of rise balls to club opponents, improving the putaway pitch as her second season with Graham-Kapowsin approached. The rest is history.
“I’d say it’s one of my main pitches now,” Pettit said.
Softball (and baseball, for that matter) are layered with in-depth, complex statistics that can paint the game more as a science than a sport. But Graham-Kapowsin’s formula is much simpler: When Pettit steps into the circle, the Eagles win.
Graham-Kapowsin (22-1) is undefeated with Pettit this season. The Eagles have won 15 straight games since a March 28 loss to Skyline, when their star pitcher attended a weekend softball camp.
The right-hander boasting a true, four-pitch mix leads the state in wins (19) and paces the South Sound with 252 strikeouts. She delivered a game-winning, two-run single late in the 4A SPSL championship game on May 7 and ranks among the state’s top two-way threats, powering the Eagles to the upcoming district tournament’s No. 1 seed.
“She’s just a goofy, no-nonsense kid,” Graham-Kapowsin head coach Jamie Thomas told The News Tribune, who first coached Pettit at the middle-school level four years ago. “She just steps on the mound, doesn’t yell… she just goes and does her job.
“I think she expects to be where she is now.”
The task for opposing hitters can be harrowing. Will Pettit bring the heat with a fastball? Will she deceive with a changeup or curveball? And what about the new-and-improved rise ball that’s arguably her best?
“It’s fun to be behind her as a fielder,” junior infielder Lehua Siaki said. “I don’t have to do a lot.
“If we didn’t have her, we would definitely lose more games than we have. She is able to hold it down on the mound, even when it’s tough.”
Graham-Kapowsin surprised the 4A state bracket in 2025, dancing to a school-record third-place finish. Pettit split innings with standout senior Jessika Jennings, now at UMass Lowell, but knew a larger role loomed.
The heavier workload hasn’t slowed her down. The Eagles ace is 19-0 with a 0.50 ERA, tallying the South Sound-best 252 strikeouts to just 33 walks in 112 innings pitched.
Of the 413 batters she’s faced this spring, Pettit has struck out 61 percent of them.
“My freshman year, I was a little rigid,” she said. “I was scared, not wanting to mess up, not trusting my team enough.
“This year, I know I can make mistakes, and I’ll still be OK. ... It’s just helpful to play free and trust my team more.”
At the plate, Pettit remains one of the South Sound’s most-feared hitters. She’s posting monster numbers in one of the state’s toughest leagues, sporting a .551 batting average (38-for-69) with 12 home runs and 41 RBI that lifted Graham-Kapowsin to the first 4A South Puget Sound League title in program history last week.
“I was on a club team with (Brooklyn) last year, and seeing her growth is insane,” Eagles freshman Manamea Laban said. “Her mental game’s amazing. She’s there for us.
“She’s able to pick it up and just go.”
There’s a ‘Big Three’ forming among 4A SPSL pitchers: Pettit, Puyallup freshman Jaycee Kemp, and Rogers’ reigning TNT All-Area Player of the Year Sierra Murray. The trio has combined for 676 strikeouts and counting in 2026, each notching 200+ before district games begin Friday. All are sophomores or younger.
“Everyone’s bringing their A-Game,” Thomas said. “And those pitchers are phenomenal, also.
“Sierra, we saw last year. She was phenomenal last year. Jaycee was a freshman coming in, and she’s out there doing her job and having a great year.”
Pettit and the Eagles are 3-0 against Murray and Kemp this spring.
“Just take ‘em when you can get ‘em, right?” Thomas chuckled. “It’s going to be some fun times for the next couple of years.”
The big-time games on big-time stages are what Pettit lives for.
“It is so fun,” she said. “Jaycee, she’s a (club) teammate. I love playing with her. There’s just so much competitiveness.
“I’d rather play those games than the (others)... I want to be there. Those games are the ones you want.”
Laban has emerged as a dangerous power hitter despite picking up the sport just three years ago, and it’s easy to see why Thomas is bullish on the ninth grader’s potential. She enters district play with six home runs (15 extra-base hits) and a .443 average.
“My dad takes a lot of time off of work to be able to work with me,” Laban said. “He built me a batting cage in the backyard. My mom was a (shotput) thrower at Wazzu [Washington State], so some of the mechanics… it’s very close to what we do.”
Siaki has belted three home runs with a .471 batting average this spring, providing Thomas with another quality arm as Graham-Kapowsin’s No. 2 pitcher (3-1, 3.59 ERA).
No. 1 Graham-Kapowsin meets No. 16 Kennedy Catholic in a 4A district tournament opener on Friday afternoon. First pitch is set for 2 p.m. on Field 4 at Kent’s Service Club Community Fields, where the Eagles are two wins shy of a state-tournament berth.
“We were league champs, we hope to be district champs, hopefully we’re state champs,” Siaki said. “It’d be a triple win for us.”
