Taking in Kayla Kowalik at first glance, or from watching her on offense, it would be difficult to guess that she was a catcher.
Like many backstops, Kowalik is tall, at 5-foot-9. But unlike most of her fellow catchers, she is also speedy. Kowalik bats from the left side and can bunt, slap and hit away. She hit .424 over a five-year college career with Kentucky, almost exclusively out of the leadoff spot, and was 80-for-90 on stolen-base attempts.
“I would describe myself as someone [who is] dynamic and maybe a little bit untraditional, just because I am very quick and I use my legs a lot,” Kowalik said. “I play the outfield, I can run around the bases a lot, so I’m very much an untraditional style of catcher.”
It all started in her hometown of New Braunfels, Texas, a short drive northeast from San Antonio. Kayla's twin sister, Gabbie, showed an interest in pitching at an early age. Their parents did not want to catch Gabbie’s pitching lessons and bullpen sessions, so those duties fell to Kayla. The twins quickly developed a softball bond and became a battery that few teams in their area wanted to face.
By the time they enrolled at St. John Paul II High School, the Kowaliks had already logged countless innings together. They were teammates in club softball, and both participated in volleyball and track and field. In short, they were as inseparable as any twins could be.
“All of our classes through elementary, middle, high school, we had every single one together. We wouldn’t play a sport without each other,” Gabbie said. “We weren’t doing anything without each other, so [it's] safe to say we knew each other pretty well. Growing up and having her behind the plate, I was very blessed in that sense. Her knowledge of the game, the way she controls the game, calls the game, it’s extraordinary to watch her.”
The Kowaliks led their high school team to unprecedented success, winning state championships in 2015, '16 and '18 and finishing runner-up in '17. Kayla, a natural right-hander, started batting lefty in middle school and became a stellar slap hitter, batting .524 as a senior with a .618 on-base percentage and 34 steals.
Gabbie was the team’s star pitcher and power hitter, and she finished her high school career with 65 home runs and 236 RBIs to complement 14 perfect games, 887 strikeouts and a 0.90 ERA. While Kayla committed to Kentucky as a freshman, Gabbie aspired to play softball and pursue an engineering degree, so she committed to Saint Louis University early in her junior year.
Holly Blackman joined St. John Paul II’s staff as an assistant coach during the Kowaliks’ freshman season and became the head coach the following year. She allowed Kayla to call pitches for Gabbie and let the sisters flourish.
“Kayla called most of everything that Gabbie was throwing,” Blackman said. “Teams hated to play them. Coaches absolutely hated to play them, but at the end of the game, completely respected them and would give them props afterward. They were always the dynamic battery here.”
Gabbie gave up pitching in college and instead was an outfielder at Saint Louis, posting a .360 career average and a .610 slugging percentage while setting the Billikens’ program record for career runs scored (169). Kayla, who did not hit for much power in high school, developed some real pop at Kentucky, putting together her most complete season in 2021.
That year, she led all NCAA Division I players with a .495 batting average and was 23-for-27 on stolen bases. After not hitting a single homer during her first two college seasons, Kayla went deep 12 times as a junior and became an NFCA First-Team All-American.
“I realized how important it was to utilize a bunch of different tools,” Kayla said. “It wasn’t until my junior year that I truly started to feel comfortable swinging away, because I had been working on it for so long and it was something I wanted to add to my game.”
Kayla said she models her offensive game after UCLA and Team USA legend Natasha Watley, as well as former Arizona standout and current head coach Caitlin Lowe. More recently, she has studied film on Ichiro Suzuki, who brought the art of slap hitting to Major League Baseball en route to a Hall of Fame career.
“It’s so cool what he did. It’s proof that you don’t have to swing one type of way, you don’t have to have perfect mechanics,” Kayla said. “You don’t have to look the right way in order to do really good things.”
Aubree Munro and Stacey Nuveman-Deniz are catchers who served as inspiration, particularly the tall and lean Munro. Kayla followed in all of their footsteps upon turning pro in 2023, leading the Women’s Professional Fastpitch league with 14 steals in 34 games with the USSSA Pride.
She joined Athletes Unlimited in 2024 and hit .333 during last year’s Championship Season (now the All-Star Cup), then was selected by the Blaze in the seventh round of the AUSL Inaugural Draft. After playing outfield and serving as a designated player to start the summer, Kayla became the starting catcher when Taylor Edwards was placed on the injured list June 21. Kayla started the next 11 games behind the plate and 13 of the remaining 15.
She started slowly at the plate but found her groove offensively after the Blaze traded for her girlfriend, McKenzie Clark. The couple now lives together in Lubbock, Texas, where Kayla works as an assistant coach at Texas Tech.
“I was waiting for my name to be called and to be able to show up for my team,” Kayla said. “A lot of it was sitting beside our pitching coach, Kara Dill, and she had our PitchCom. A lot of it was watching the sequencing that Taylor [Edwards] was calling and what we were throwing to certain hitters. That way, when I went in and when my name got called, I was prepared to step in and be seamless in that transition.”
The AUSL All-Star Cup has seen Kayla continue her strong run of play -- she doubled in her first game on Aug. 2, then went 3-for-4 with a walk-off single two days later. She entered Friday at the top of the individual leaderboard with 1,360 points. With Rachel Garcia playing for Team USA at the World Games in China, Kayla captained the Gold team for Series 2, which began Aug. 19 in Rosemont, Ill., and concludes this week with the All-Star Cup finale, which runs through Sunday.
While Gabbie has moved on from softball and is at peace with that decision, Kayla hopes to stay in the game as long as possible. She joined Texas Tech’s coaching staff under Gerry Glasco and helped the Red Raiders advance to the Women’s College World Series finals, and she has her eye on making the Team USA roster for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“It’s playing until I feel like the wheels are falling off or I have nothing left to give on the field,” Kayla said. “We’ve still got a few years left to run in the engine. I don’t think I could ever truly step away entirely from the sport and not give back to young women and athletes who deserve it.”
Benjamin Rosenberg is the Blaze beat reporter for the AUSL this season. He has more than seven years of experience covering college, professional and high school softball, and graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 2021.