A Strikeout Senior Season; Mylee Parker Led Lady Warriors To Historic Finish

By Editor | July 21, 2026 |

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by Janice Penix

Mylee Parker has always been a fierce competitor, but during her senior season, her talents really shined.

She was a key part of leading the Lamar High School softball team well into the postseason and to one of the program’s best-ever finishes.

But the Lady Warriors’ star pitcher isn’t one to toot her own horn.

“Mylee is a silent competitor and maintains her composure well on the mound,” Lamar softball coach Haley Lyle said. “She is the type of kid who always has a smile on her face, and you’ll never know when she’s phased. She doesn’t show a ton of emotion and will almost always give the credit to someone else. She is truly selfless.”

Softball Standout

This past spring, the Lady Warrior softball team finished with a 25-4 record and won both the district and regional championships before falling in the opening round of the state tournament.

Parker pitched 135 innings over the season, earning all-conference and all-state honors, as well as being selected for the state all-star game.

Although she had been Lamar’s primary pitcher for three seasons, Parker’s senior season was a breakout year, according to her coach.

“Mylee came in as a freshman with her primary position as a pitcher,” Lyle said. “We had a strong senior pitcher that year, so Mylee ended up playing right field for us most of the year, pitching only 15 innings that season. Every season after that, Mylee primarily pitched and when she wasn’t pitching she played outfield for us.”

This year, she became the Lady Warriors’ primary pitcher.

“Every year she was a great pitcher with great defenses behind her,” Lyle said. “She knew her role as a pitcher and knew she wasn’t typically a strikeout pitcher. But that all changed this past season.”

Parker recorded 216 strikeouts in her final season at Lamar, compared to only 147 strikeouts over her three previous seasons combined.

“I think Mylee really honed in on the fact that it was her senior season, and she had a ton of faith in her team, as well as her pitching ability,” Lyle said. “This season, Mylee was more confident in her pitches, she trusted what she was throwing and I think that made a huge difference. She showed a lot of growth from her junior to senior season and it was a big part of our success this season.”

Parker said her performances in the pitcher’s circle were a pleasant surprise.

“It was definitely unexpected, the way I ended up pitching, because I feel like I’ve never pitched as well as I did this year,” she said. “I’ve never been a strikeout pitcher. I pitch, they make contact, and my defense has my back. That’s the way I’ve always been.

“Then this year it was like, for some reason, I was getting more strikeouts than usual, and I was like, ‘OK, maybe it’s just a one-time thing.’”

In an early-season game against Paris, Parker recorded 13 strikeouts and pitched a no-hitter as Lamar shut out the Lady Eagles 10-0.

“I’ve never had a no-hitter or a perfect game in my life,” she said. “So I thought maybe I just got lucky, but then it kept happening, and I kept averaging 10 strikeouts a game or more. I was just like, ‘Oh, this has got to be God, because it’s not me.’ Because I didn’t change anything different, in my training. In my offseason, I probably did less than I did a year before, because I was more of a player in basketball this year, being a senior. I was more active in that, so I had less time for preparing for softball season. So it definitely had to be God, because I was not doing anything extra.”

Getting An Early Start

Parker said she has played softball since she was small, starting with T-ball in the Johnson County Girls Club. A couple of years later, she began playing travel ball and has continued in the sport ever since.

“I was seven or eight when I started pitching,” she said. “Somebody brought it up to me, talking about pitching. I was kind of bored in the outfield, because we were so young that nobody was really hitting that hard. So I wasn’t getting much action.

“And I like to be in control. I’m kind of a control freak. So if somebody else is out there pitching, I have faith in them, but I feel better if it was me doing it. With pitching, you’re part of every single play, every single pitch. So I really liked to be part of that.”

Pitching lessons helped her develop her skills early.

“I did start lessons when I was seven or eight, and it was just real basic things, like the mechanics and getting to know how to actually pitch,” Parker said. “At first, it was definitely frustrating, because it was something I’d never done. It was all foreign motions to me. I had never went underhand like that. But after a little while, I would definitely say it was obvious that I was natural with consistency. I was good at throwing strikes and being accurate, but speed was not my thing.”

During the limited innings Parker wasn’t in the circle, she continued to play outfield.

“When I’m not pitching, I play outfield,” she said. “I get rotated back and forth anywhere in the outfield. But pitching is my favorite. That’s where I want to be.”

She said she has been blessed with teammates who were also strong pitchers, including Bailee Cowell, a senior when Parker was in ninth grade who is currently a member of the University of the Ozarks softball team.

“We had Bailee Cowell my freshman year, and I would get maybe two or three games in for the season,” Parker said. “They were not conference games, they were games that didn’t really matter. Coach Barton, who was our coach at the time, was just trying to throw me into the water to see how I did.”

Parker said it could be intimidating as a freshman to face older players.

“I would go start pitching, and there’s a six-foot big girl going up to hit,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m 5-3, not near the size of her.’ I’d see seniors with tattoos and freak out. I just had to get past that, and once I realized that usually, if they did hit it, they popped it up or grounded out, I kind of felt a little better. But at first I thought they were going to kill me.”

After Cowell graduated, Parker shared pitching duties with Shaylie Mayfield, who was a year older, for the next two seasons. Mayfield also went on to play softball at the collegiate level. For Parker’s senior season, junior Brooklyn (Newt) Melton provided relief for Parker when needed.

“I was a starting pitcher from sophomore to senior year, but if I ever got in a bind or they started hitting me, they would put Shay in because we’re completely different pitchers,” she said. “I’m not fast, but I have good consistency and spin. And she’s got speed, so, we kind of balanced each other out pretty well. Definitely as the years went on, I had a lot more confidence in myself, especially this year.”

Parker also attributed her catcher this season, fellow senior Addie Hardin, for helping her to be confident in the pitcher’s circle. The two have played together since their youth league days.

“I started out in the very beginning with Addie,” Parker said. “I think me and her got along very well this year. In the past, we’ve had our little scuffles, but this year, we both were able to put that aside. We love each other. We’ve been best friends since we were three, so obviously, anybody who’s friends for that long is going to argue about something.

“But she definitely had a way of calming me down. She would come talk to me on the mound if I wasn’t doing as good as I should, or she would look at me after a good pitch, and she’d be like, ‘Hey, you got it. Keep doing that.’ We’d be one out away from winning a big game, and she’d say, ‘It’s just you and me, right here,’ and that would really calm me down.”

Lasting Friendships

Sharing the game with her friends is what Parker said has made her enjoy playing softball for so long.

“I think what I like most is the team camaraderie,” she said. “Whenever you have a good group of girls, and you’re all together, there’s no drama, and you just all get along. It’s like a family. It’s really fun.”

She has developed friendships through travel ball as well as school ball, although she has competed in travel with some of her LHS teammates for several years.

“I’ve made so many new friendships through softball, people from all over the state, and in Oklahoma, even,” Parker said. “My best friend, Mayci Hilton, plays for a Shockwave team, so that’s who I’m playing with now. That team is probably the most family-like team I’ve ever been on. There’s no drama at all, and everybody just gets along. It’s a great environment, and everybody wants to be there.”

Hilton, who is a year behind Parker in school, was another key supporter for her friend’s success.

“We’ve played together our whole lives,” Parker said. “She is my best friend, so she has been a big part of cheering me on when I’m pitching. She’s been a big part of Lamar softball, too.”

As a team member, Parker has always seen her role as a peacemaker, but this year also saw her leadership abilities emerge.

So, and trying, like, I’m one of the peacemakers. So if somebody’s like bringing the team down, I try to make it better, even though sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it does.

“I am a people-pleaser, so I try to make everybody happy,” Parker said. “But this year I did find myself more in a vocal role because we did have a couple of issues in high school ball that needed addressed. Being a senior, I was like, ‘It’s me, I need to say something. I’m not going to expect the sophomores and younger people to stand up to other upperclassmen. So I did find myself addressing things when they needed to be, and I usually would not have done that before.”

Despite some minor challenges, she said the team chemistry was positive overall for the Lady Warriors.

“It always takes adjusting whenever you have new girls coming up every year from freshmen and then you have the seniors that leave,” she said. “It’s always a new team dynamic, but the ones who are there, since we were here last year, and then we were here this year, we kind of helped the younger ones. Then once everybody got on the same page, it flowed really well. I think, for the most part, we flowed really well together.”

Basketball Player

In addition to softball, Parker has played basketball since she was young, and was a member of the Lady Warrior basketball team at LHS.

While she would call softball her favorite sport, she said she always enjoyed playing basketball.

“I’m a guard, usually a shooter,” she said. “I do not do good dribbling. Do not give me the ball to dribble. I mainly was just the one who stood in the corner, and if I was open, I’d shoot. And I was there for defense, too.”

Her senior season, Lamar was coming off the high of a state championship the year before; however, Parker said the championship team was led by a group of seniors and the underclassmen saw limited playing time.

“Coming off of our previous seniors who had won a state title, expectations were very high,” she said. “But we also did not have near the playing time or experience that they did, because we didn’t start until our senior year.”

Parker said she enjoyed playing for Brandon Schluterman, the Lady Warriors’ head coach.

“Coach Schluterman is a very good coach, so I really enjoyed playing for him,” she said. “I was not as much of a leader in basketball as I am in softball. I was part of the team, and I guess I was a leader by example, but I was not as vocal.

“I enjoyed just the team and I enjoyed playing for our coach. If we would have had a bad coach, I probably would not have kept up with it as long as I did. But all my friends were there, and I did enjoy playing. So I stuck it through.”

Basketball did not come as naturally for Parker as softball.

“It is definitely more of a mental challenge for me than softball,” she said. “I was in my head a lot more than softball.

“I love pitching. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Leading a team in that way, I just love doing it. I don’t feel like much of a leader in basketball or any other sports I played, but in softball, I feel good leading the team while I’m on the mound.”

Parker said she was proud to be a part of the Lamar basketball program.

“Being a Lady Warrior is definitely a pride thing,” she said. “I know our basketball team this year wasn’t as good as the year before, but they really carved a name for our program. So anytime anybody heard ‘Lamar,’ they took us serious. It definitely makes you proud to be a Warrior, even just saying that I was from Lamar. Everybody knows our community has our back.”

Not Just An Athlete

In addition to her athletic talents, Parker has developed her musical abilities, playing the piano since she was five years old.

Her first piano teacher, Patricia Dryer, was an elderly client of her father’s veterinary clinic, who became a beloved figure in Parker’s young life.

“She was like a second grandma to me,” Parker said. “We would drive to Ozark once a week, and I was supposed to have 30-minute lessons, but it usually turned into an hour or sometimes two hours, for lessons and visiting.”

Dryer cautioned Parker not to put her fingers in danger when she was playing sports.

“She would tell me, whatever I did in softball, to protect my fingers,” Parker said. “She would always tell me to be careful.”

Parker was also inspired by her first teacher to continue to play, no matter how busy she got with other activities. After Dryer’s death, Parker continued her lessons, first from Jill Van Buren and then with Joanne Brown. She continued with Brown until this year, when she completed her final lesson and recital.

Playing piano is a release when Parker needs to unwind from school, sports or other responsibilities, she said. Her family recently moved the piano from their home in Knoxville to the house where Parker will live while she attends college.

They also have a special piano at their farm house in west Johnson County, a baby grand piano that was owned by her first teacher.

“Whenever Mylee would finish a lesson on the piano, if she had a really good lesson that day, Mrs. Dryer would go to the baby grand, sit Mylee down, and then she would play ‘Moonlight Sonata’ for Mylee,” Parker’s mother, Amber, said. “And sometimes, she would let Mylee play her music on that piano, maybe just a song, but it was very rare.”

Several years after Dryer’s death, Parker’s father was able to acquire the piano from her family.

“A few years had gone by after she passed away, and Shane had kept in touch with her son from Tulsa, because he still had her property and everything in Ozark,” Amber said. “Shane had reached out, but we didn’t know it, and then one day, he surprised us with that piano. So, now it’s in our living room at the farm. It’s pretty special.”

Parker said she learned to play part of “Moonlight Sonata” last year and performed it with a fellow piano student, and Lamar basketball teammate.

“I did learn a little bit of it,” she said. “Me and Maddie Davidson, were kind of in that together. Joanne had us do a duet for the recital last year, and we did part of “Moonlight Sonata.” I hadn’t told Joanne about me and Mrs. Dryer, it just happened to be what she chose. But I thought it was pretty cool.”

Parker said she is glad she continued to play piano, even when life got busy.

“With sports, it was always on the back burner, and I just never had as much time to practice,” she said. “But now I’m glad I stuck with it. I’ll usually play anytime I’m alone. I don’t like playing in front of people, but it’s calming and relaxing for me.”

In the fall, Parker will attend the University of Arkansas and plans to major in biology or pre-medicine.

“Mylee is one of the sweetest girls you’ll ever meet,” Lyle said. “Not only has she been a great player for us in softball, but she’s also extremely smart and talented.

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This story appears in the July 22, 2026, edition of The Graphic, available online and at businesses throughout Johnson and Franklin counties.

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