Two-Sport Standouts

Applying makeup in a moving vehicle can be quite difficult.

Kinlee East now knows this firsthand.

Fall sports have wrapped up in Kingfisher County.

That became official earlier this month when Kingfisher High School competed in the Class 4A Game Day state competition in Moore.

It was the final event for a county team, no matter the fall sport.

Football. Cheer. Cross Country. Softball.

It also wrapped up the busiest stretch in East’s young life.

A freshman, she was not only a member of the KHS cheer team, but also the softball team.

Two sports. One season. Kinley Taylor lived that life as well.

She was also a member of the Lady Jackets’ softball team in addition to running cross country.

Two sports. One season. It made for hectic days, weeks and months.

But both East and Taylor not only persevered, they excelled.

They were vital parts to the success of their respective teams. And both said they’re ready to do it again.

••• The alarm clock went off at 6:30 every morning for East.

“I would get out of bed, get ready for school and pack my stuff for school and practices,” she said.

For the diamond, that meant softball pants, socks and cleats or - on game days - the correct uniform.

“I also had to remember my stuff for cheer which was normally just my cheer shoes and an extra pair of shorts,” she said.

East would use her time wisely at school, always trying to finish homework during class or during the day’s WIN (What I Need) period that’s built in during the day.

“I never really had time after school to do so,” she said.

At 2:20 p.m., it was time for athletics.

Both East and Taylor made their way to the softball facility to change, whether it be for practice or a game.

••• For Taylor, softball was generally her second practice of the day as Taylor’s started even earlier than East’s.

The cross country teams practiced at 6:30 a.m. every day.

“A typical day for me would be waking up at 5:45 for that practice,” said Taylor, the daughter of Kevin and Beth Taylor.

The practices would generally end around 7:30 a.m., about 40 minutes before school started, meaning she had a short window to get ready for classes.

“It was a struggle getting up so early and running, but it was the only way to be able to get my run in and still get to be able to go to softball practice (after school),” Taylor said.

Softball practice would last at least two hours.

“After that I would go home and do my homework I had for that day,” Taylor said.

“Finally I would eat dinner then head to bed.”

••• For East though, she was only finished with half of her practices when softball ended.

While Taylor’s day started earlier, East’s went later.

When practice was over, she’d head straight back to what the girls call “the indoor” which is the facility that cheer and softball share.

“There I would get ready for cheer,” said East, the daughter of Jason and Keri East.

Those extra shorts she packed? Sometimes it was for nothing.

“Some days I just practiced in my softball uniform.”

After two more hours of cheer practice, then East finally found her way back home.

Like Taylor, it was oftentimes 12 or more hours after she’d left it.

“I would go home, eat, shower and head to bed for the same thing the next day,” East said.

Game days usually were even more hectic.

Both East and Taylor - and the rest of the team were required to complete some softball drills before being released to eat prior to game time.

Sometimes East would eat, or… “I’d run over to cheer to practice during that brief window before getting on the bus or hitting the turf (home softball field),” she said.

The cheer team not only was preparing for competition, but also cheers on football game days.

On Sept. 1, the softball team played an afternoon game in Enid while the football team played that evening in Weatherford.

“I had to change in the car for the football game in Weatherford coming from the softball game in Enid,” East said.

“Lipstick in a moving truck isn’t easy.”

••• Neither Taylor nor East were just going through the motions on their respective teams.

Their participation was vital to the success of each group.

That was especially true in softball.

In coach Morgan Dutton’s first year, the Lady Jackets were comprised of two juniors, six sophomores and a whopping nine freshmen.

Taylor started at third base all season and led the team with a .349 batting average. She was also first on the team in hits (29) and runs scored (25) and was third in RBIs (13).

“She was our leader on offense this year,” said Dutton. “She came in and really went to work for us.”

For Dutton, it wasn’t just what Taylor did, but how she did it.

“Kinley always has a great attitude, whether it was games or practice and it was that way no matter what she had done that morning at cross country or what she was going to do that evening,” Dutton said.

East was second on the team with a .300 batting average. She was also second in hits (24), tied for sixth in runs (15) and led the team in RBIs (20).

But that was only part of her major contribution.

KHS played 31 games this season. East started 26 of them in the pitching circle.

Of the 165 1/3 innings pitched by KHS players, East threw 135 1/3 of them.

“She was key to our success this year on the field,” Dutton said.

“She pitched almost every game for us and never complained about that workload.”

East carried a 2.90 earned run average for the season.

Both East and Taylor earned all-conference and all-district honors for their performances on the softball diamond.

One game East didn’t pitch in was for good reason.

A home game scheduled Sept. 11 with Elk City was rained out and rescheduled for that Saturday, Sept. 16.

That was also the same day as the cheerleading regional.

“It was pretty upsetting since I didn’t pitch my best the last time we played them and I wanted a shot at playing them again,” East said.

Dutton had a message for East once they learned she would have to miss the game.

“I told her to just focus on cheer and we would be fine here,” Dutton said.

KHS was able to hang tough, but Elk City pulled away for an 8-0 win.

“It’s hard when you can’t be there,” East said. “On the bus on the way to cheer regionals, I tried not thinking too much about it though, because I knew I had something greater in front of me.”

She was right. KHS won the cheer regional championship that day and locked up its spot at state. Word quickly spread to the softball team.

“The whole team was so excited when they looked and saw that they had won regionals,” Dutton said.

There was some crossover that day for Taylor as well.

That morning, she ran sixth overall out of 87 competitors as the KHS girls won the team title at the Turkey Creek Invitational cross country meet in Hennessey.

It was much the same story most Saturdays in the fall for the cross country team.

Kingfisher won all but one of its regular season meets…and that was a onepoint loss to Hooker, which won the Class 2A championship, when Taylor sat out due to a knee injury.

Taylor was 12th at the Class 4A regional meet at Oklahoma Bible Academy on Oct. 21.

She was one of six KHS runners to complete the two-mile course in under 13 minutes. The top-five average for KHS at that meet (12:43.23) was the best in school history as Kingfisher easily won the regional crown.

The state meet the next week was the only other meet Kingfisher didn’t win in 2023.

The Lady Jackets – ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in Class 4A all season – were a disappointing fifth overall.

However, Taylor was Kingfisher’s second-best finisher and was 35th out of 162 runners.

Despite not winning the team title, Kingfisher was awarded the Class 4A academic championship, to which Taylor also contributed.

“Kinley is an incredible athlete with an amazing work ethic,” said cross country coach Kerri Lafferty.

“I know it was hard for her to play an evening softball game and then turn around and meet us for a 6:30 a.m. cross country workout the next morning,” Lafferty said.

However, the coach said Taylor had the will to get it done.

“She’s very mentally tough, which she demonstrated at the state meet,” said Lafferty, noting the cold, wet conditions that affected many runners in the race.

“She probably ran one of her better races of the year that day.”

Dutton kept a close eye on Taylor throughout the season, partly out of caution and mostly out of amazement.

“She had to learn to balance both sports early, since we both started in the summer,” Dutton said. “She learned that she would have to communicate with us if it was too much at any point.

“The amount of effort she put into both of the sports at the same time is incredible and I am looking forward to seeing her grow into next year.”

Taylor noticed the effort both of her coaches put into allowing her to play both sports.

“My coaches were great with working around both schedules. Coach Dutton was great with knowing if I had a meet the day we had games and understanding I was going to be late,” she said.

“Coach Lafferty was great with working with softball. If we couldn’t have morning (cross country) practices, I would go to softball and focus on that, then run when I had time. They were both really understanding and made it easier to get through both seasons.”

There was more overlap with the softball and cheer schedules, which necessitated more sharing and even understanding as far as East’s time and talents were involved.

“At the beginning of summer, Coach Dutton and I met and came up with a schedule that we thought would benefit both our programs,” said Kingfisher cheer coach Carma Reagan. “It started with Summer Pride and continued throughout both of our seasons. We knew both programs needed her to be successful so we tried to find what worked best for that to happen.”

Cheer practiced six days a week and averaged well over two hours per practice. Sundays and Wednesdays were mandatory.

“Those were the two days we had Kinlee for the entire practice,” Reagan said.

Road softball games made it tougher for East to be back for cheer practice.

However, on days when the softball team had practice or a home game, she fit both into her schedule, whether it be before her game, after it or both…and no matter what she was wearing.

“She would come over fully dressed in her softball uniform, tall socks, belt and all in order to practice with us until she had to be at the softball building,” Reagan recalled.

East said the coaches working together made her life less complicated.

“Both of my coaches were very helpful throughout my season and did a great job sharing me,” she said. “For instance, Coach Dutton was very understanding and let me leave for cheer, especially closer to competition time.

“And Coach Reagan knew that I couldn’t be there every practice. Even with missing a lot of both sports, they both had confi dence in me being able to do both which I was very grateful for.”

It definitely paid off in cheer.

One week after winning that regional championship, East helped KHS win the Class 4A state championship in Tulsa.

It’s the first time Kingfi sher had won the state cheer title since claiming three in a row from 200608 and it was the first girls state championship for KHS since cross country in 2018.

••• The hectic schedules between practices, school, games, meets, competitions and other obligations - rarely afforded either girl much free time.

“I never really had downtime during the weekdays,” said East. “But I did get a few weekends that I got to go camping with my grandparents.”

For Taylor, she’d often spend time with her family at home after Saturday cross country meets, or visit her siblings - Tate, Will and Cora Beth - in college at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva.

During the week, any downtime she had was usually after practice on Wednesdays.

“I would usually go to church on those days and I found that really relaxing,” Taylor said.

••• Relaxing isn’t a word that was heard often in relation to East and Taylor in the fall of 2023.

“It was very busy, but I feel as though I was able to handle both sports physically,” Taylor said.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t free from injury.

Taylor developed patellofemoral pain syndrome, also referred to as “runner’s knee.”

One day after the softball season ended, Taylor sat out the OK Runner Cross Country Classic held Sept. 30 in Norman.

She missed the following week as well as Kingfisher was second in the Watonga Cross Country Invitational with her watching.

KHS was off the next week, giving Taylor three weeks - essentially - to prepare for the Oct. 21 regional.

She spent it wisely. Kevin, her father, is a physical therapist and treated her every day and also before her training runs. He also developed a training program for his daughter as well as for the other runners “that had issues and needed prevention.”

“The coaches were great to allow Kinley a few weeks off from running and instead did a lot of cross training activities within the program,” Beth Taylor said.

It paid off. She ran her best time of the year (12:52.15) at the regional.

Then, at state, her time of 13:16 was 11 seconds faster than she ran on the same course earlier in the season.

“We were very proud of Kinley and her resiliency and determination that she had to get back and compete at regionals and state,” Beth Taylor said. “Kinley knew the condition wouldn’t get worse, but it is painful and she just had to push through it, gutting it out after a few weeks off.

“To come back and beat her pre-state time at the state meet was a great accomplishment.”

The other challenge during the season for Taylor came at the end of the day when her bed was calling, but studying was too.

That’s where her mental toughness once again kicked in.

“I would end up having to stay up late to get it all done,” Taylor said. “To get through the stress of having to study when it was so late, I would take a few minutes to pray about it, calm down, then get back to it.”

East also had to dig deep to continue pushing herself.

“Toward the middle of the softball season, I slowly felt those long seven-inning games and the mental toll of me putting so much pressure on myself piling up,” she said. “And those two-hour cheer practices of constant moving and lifting made me very tired.

“I just kept saying, ‘I’m softball tired, not cheer tired,’ or ‘I’m cheer tired, not softball tired.’” Like the Taylors, the Easts were also keeping a watchful eye on their daughter…and sometimes what they saw surprised even them.

In the two weeks of “crunch time” leading up to the cheerleading regional and state, practices were even more intense and more focused.

East also played six softball games during that stretch.

“The fear of injury was real all season long, but I think the parent worry was the worst in that time frame because we knew she would leave the cheer squad in a horrible spot if she went down that close to competition,” said Keri East.

But her daughter made it through…and with little complaint.

“She really showed some mental and physical grit with the expectations she had set for herself in those two weeks,” Keri East said. “I think I complained more about the drives back and forth to get her to town than she ever did about having to jump from sport to sport.”

••• The week after the state cheer competition, Reagan found East in the cheer room.

“You survived your first year of playing two sports,” Reagan told her.

“I did,” East replied. “But it was tough.”

Reagan realizes that and is proud of what she saw out of the freshman.

“I know it was a lot for her to manage, but she did a beautiful job of it,” Reagan said. “She has a great work ethic and a ‘don’t quit’ attitude. That will take her far in life. And kudos to her parents. They have raised a great girl. I’m so thankful they pushed her, encouraged her and instilled how important it is to show up for the team/teams you commit to.

“It makes a big difference when you have athletes like her.”

••• Two sports. One season. It’s not unheard of. Maybe not even uncommon.

But it’s still nothing easy. And especially considering the rigors of the two sports.

Softball was often played in the heat of the day and sometimes on a surface that literally melted cleats.

Cross country requires running miles and miles a week, all in preparation for that two-mile run on race day.

Cheerleading was hours upon hours of running, tumbling, tossing, catching, flying.

One is hard enough. Two can be brutally tough, especially when compounded with making the transition into high school.

It’s also a tradition likely to continue for Kinley Taylor and Kinlee East.

“I would do it again and again until I couldn’t physically do it anymore,” East said.

Taylor echoed the same thoughts.

“I love both sports and even though it’s difficult to play both in one season, it was worth it,” she said. “I will keep playing softball and running cross country as long as I’m in high school.”

Both have a lot to show for their efforts.

Both collected multiple individual honors in softball.

Taylor medaled in nearly every cross country meet, won the regional title and the academic state championship.

East helped KHS return to the mountaintop in cheer with regional and state championships.

“The joy I felt when everything clicked into place for cheer and knowing I helped make a state championship team was unbeatable,” East said. “I also could never replace the feeling of hitting the diamond with my team and knowing that the future of KHS softball is so bright.”

It made the toughest days worth it.

“I got through those moments knowing that these long days were going to pay off in the end and they did,” East said.

Kinlee East and Kinley Taylor proved a lot to their teams, their coaches, their parents and even themselves.

Clichéd as it may sound, they proved when they put their minds to something, there’s nothing they can’t achieve.

That includes the ability to put on lipstick in a moving truck.