Sophia Perez

Sophia finished the 2026 high school regular season with the highest batting average in the country. Through Oct. 13 of her junior year at Pueblo Central she was hitting .817 (49-for-60) — first in Colorado across every classification and first on MaxPreps' national batting-average leaderboard — and had stolen 28 bases in 17 games, second in Class 4A ( ColoradoPreps ). The Pueblo Star Journal went into the season calling her "one of the best players in the state."

As a sophomore she hit .560 with six doubles, six triples, a home run, 13 RBI and 17 stolen bases — striking out just three times in 115 plate appearances — and led Colorado in runs scored with 56. At shortstop she turned six double plays with 45 putouts and 47 assists, anchoring a Wildcats team that went 22-6, finished 8-0 in the South-Central League for its second straight league title, and reached the state tournament. She won the league batting title for the second year in a row, was named to the 2025 Colorado all-state team, and was the Pueblo Star Journal's Girls Athlete of the Year for fall 2025. The Pueblo Softball Hall of Fame then named her its 2026 Tony Bobian Memorial Most Valuable High School Player .

None of it came out of nowhere. As a freshman she led the South-Central League in batting average (.602), on-base percentage, runs, hits and stolen bases (31) during the regular season and was the only underclassman named All-Conference First Team. She has been Pueblo Central's softball MVP in each of her first two seasons.

She joined Stars National Walker in March 2025 as a left-handed power slapper who can run, and has collected hardware at nearly every stop since: All-Tournament at the 2025 PGF Premier National Championships, and at the 2025 Scenic City Summer event, where Stars reached the 14U championship game out of more than 80 teams; All-Tournament at the 2025 ACFL Fall Championships, where Stars went 6-0 to earn its Alliance Nationals bid; and Offensive Player of the Tournament at the 2025 Veterans Tribute Showcase. She hit .543 with a .588 on-base percentage and did not make an error across the fall 2025 season, then hit .487 with a .569 on-base percentage over 46 games in summer 2026 — closing it on the All-Tournament team at the Alliance Fastpitch Championship Series as Stars finished 16U Tier III National Runner-Up.

Beyond the travel circuit, she has represented Team Mexico at the TCS International Challenge in Colorado two summers running — third place in 2025, runner-up in 2026 — and was selected for the 2026 All World Game. She was invited to the 2026 Colorado All-American All-Star Game and to USA Softball's High Performance Program National Selection Event in Vero Beach, Florida, this December. Extra Inning Softball, where she is a two-year ambassador, ranked her No. 4 in its 2025 regional rankings and named her to its Class of 2028 Mountain Region Standouts list of top-100 hitters.

The speed shows up off the diamond too: she has run 13.01 in the 100 meters for Pueblo Central's track team, where she also runs the 400 and the 4x100 and 4x400 relays, and was named the school's Track Breakout Athlete of the Year in 2025. She has a 51-inch box jump and started for the basketball team as a freshman. In the classroom she carries a 4.0-plus GPA, was inducted into the National Honor Society in 2026, and is an Extra Inning Softball Elite Scholar on its Class of 2028 National Honor Roll. Softball runs in the family — her father, Jeremiah Perez, was inducted into the Pueblo Softball Hall of Fame at the same 2026 ceremony where she received her MVP award, and is an assistant coach with Stars National Walker.