Anna McGavin is replacing a legend and making it look easy
· Yahoo Sports
Farmington Hills Mercy junior Anna McGavin entered the spring in an almost impossible situation.
Her job was to replace current Alabama pitcher Kaitlyn Pallozzi, who graduated as Michigan's Gatorade Player of the Year, the nation's No. 7-ranked recruit in the 2025 class and the MHSAA record holder for strikeouts in a single game (21).
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Fortunately for the Marlins (21-17), McGavin got a head start.
Before the 2025 season, it appeared an injury would sideline Pallozzi for at least the start of the spring. That meant McGavin was in line to start in the circle and lead a Mercy team that eventually won Catholic League and district championships.
McGavin trained nonstop.
She'd practice with Mercy and then head to individual instruction for more work in the cage and circle. Most nights, she didn't get home until 11 p.m. Then she'd stay up to finish her homework.
She was ready to lead the Marlins as a sophomore.
Instead, Pallozzi battled back and returned in time to put together one of the greatest seasons in program history.
"I came into sophomore year, thinking, 'Oh shoot, I'm going to throw,'" McGavin said. "All that work I put in, I just kept going and kept doing that, and it brought me here. I really think going through that experience made me the pitcher that I'm today. ... It was a long ride to get here, but it was worth it."
And where is here? The Division 2 state finals against Armada on Saturday at Secchia Stadium on the campus of Michigan State University.
After a rough regular season that saw Mercy lose 12 of its first 18 games, the Marlins are headed to their first state championship game since 2016 and just the third in program history.
Considering Pallozzi never made it past the state semifinals, that's a pretty big deal. And her replacement is the one who led Mercy here.
McGavin delivered a gutsy performance, striking out 11, walking two and allowing eight hits and one earned run in seven innings to help the Marlins beat Ogemaw Heights (28-1) 7-1 in the state semifinal on Thursday, June 11.
"The resiliency out of her is what has kind of got us out of the hump," said Mercy coach Alec Lesko, who is also McGavin's grandfather and has been her private pitching instructor since elementary school. "We struggled early in the year, but she's so mentally tough that she was able to recover, find herself and believe in what she was capable of doing."
Only advancing to the championship wasn't as easy as the box score suggests.
After Ogemaw's Laila Ireland scored on a passed ball in the third inning to cut the deficit to 4-1, the Falcons kept threatening.
They put at least two runners on base in four straight innings. Three times, they got runners into scoring position.
And every time, McGavin slammed the door.
In the fourth, she stranded runners on second and third by striking out three straight batters.
In the fifth, younger sister Audrey McGavin turned a double play with first baseman Vanessa Husband, who went 2-for-4 with two RBIs to lead Mercy's offense. Anna McGavin then ended the inning with a strikeout.
In the sixth, Anna McGavin answered with a flyout, a pop-up and another strikeout.
Whenever the Falcons made a push, she had an answer.
"I was getting kind of angry there," Anna McGavin said after striking out three straight in the fourth. "But the one thing about myself that I take a lot of pride in is that I don't get in my head too much. It's my circle, and I just try to take care of my business. I try to think of the big picture, and it's just me out there, thinking, 'I got this, you know your stuff.'"
Which speaks to her growth.
McGavin admitted she was frustrated after putting in all that work before her sophomore season, only to watch Pallozzi return from injury and reclaim the circle.
She didn't like being a bench player. So she used it as fuel.
McGavin doubled down before this spring, knowing the only person who could beat her for the starting job was herself.
"She's shown a lot of maturity, mostly," said Lesko, who returned as Mercy's coach this season after leading the Marlins to their only state title 10 years ago. "Her skills are there. The ball spins, and it moves in a lot of different directions. But the maturity with her is showing. When she's in trouble, she tries to overthrow. When she's not overthrowing, she's hard to hit, hard to square up. You saw that with the pop-ups today. But that's been her growth, and it's been a grind."
That growth is even more impressive when you consider the pressure on her shoulders.
She had to replace one of the greatest pitchers in Michigan history. And every time Mercy has been backed into a corner this season, she's answered.
Instead of buckling under the pressure, she's thrived in it.
"It was a long ride to get here, but it was worth it," Anna McGavin said. "The one thing I kept telling myself is that I'm not going to be Kaitlyn, and Kaitlyn is not going to be me. I get outs the way I get outs. She gets outs the way she gets outs. We are definitely not the same, but she's definitely an inspiration of someone I hope to be. But I'm my own player, and that's what I keep thinking in my head. I don't need to be Kaitlyn. I'm Anna McGavin, and I just won the semifinals."
Few gave the Marlins much of a chance to return to East Lansing after graduating Pallozzi and several other starters who moved on to play in college.
Many of Mercy's key contributors stepped into starting roles for the first time this season and have made their mark. Others from the Pallozzi era have stepped up, too, including Sophia Chaput, who went 3-for-4 with a solo home run against Ogemaw.
Yet here the Marlins are.
They're playing for their second state title in a decade, and McGavin is a big reason why.
"Who wouldn't feel the kind of pressure she has?" Lesko said. "She never got her chance last year, so she was hungry to be the No. 1, be the starter, and she's done great with that opportunity."
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life and the Detroit Free Press. Follow him on X at @folsomwrites.
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: MHSAA softball: Anna McGavin leads Farmington Hills Mercy to finals