As a freshman in high school four years ago, while attending the Missouri elite invite only camp was where Lauren Rice separated herself from the other 60 players across the country at the camp. First pitch she threw at the camp was clocked at 70 mph. As a 14-year-old throwing, 70 mph is something special and that’s why coach Ehren Earleywine could not let Lauren leave the camp without a scholarship offer. “I gave Mizzou a verbal freshman year after exploring a couple different D1 offers,” said Lauren Rice. With Lauren signing her national letter-of-intent that gives Missouri one of the top recruiting classes for 2017.
Over the last four years, Lauren has been challenging herself with playing up and against the elite competition across the country. Last summer Lauren played on the 18U PGF National Championship team, She was one of the pitchers on Firecracker-Rico’s team based out of California. This will be Lauren’s last summer before entering the competitive SEC softball and she returned home to play her last summer of travel ball with the Beverly Bandits out of Chicago. “I had visited the campus many times by that point and fell in love with it because it felt like home,” said Lauren Rice.
