Since 2012, anyone facing the King’s Fork High School softball team has known it would be in for a challenge. That has been true in large part due to the presence of Sydney Wash in the circle.

Now in her senior year, Wash has really been showcasing what she can do this season and why she was able to verbally commit to an NCAA Division I softball program before her junior year.

Her recent performance against Nansemond-Suffolk Academy at the Jazmine Foreman Memorial Tournament in Chesapeake led to her becoming the Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week.

King’s Fork defeated the Lady Saints 2-0 in a game that ended two outs into the bottom of the sixth inning because the contest was timed to ensure the tournament stayed on schedule.

“We were really excited to play them just because we had never played a private school before,” Wash said.

She was stellar, throwing 10 strikeouts, while allowing only one hit and no walks. She also helped offensively, contributing one of her team’s nine hits.

The game was actually Wash and the Lady Bulldogs’ second of the day. Earlier in the tourney, they had faced another challenge in the form of Kempsville High School, falling 2-1.

She threw three strikeouts against the Lady Chiefs, a team that includes players from her travel team, the Richmond Ruckus 18U Martinez.

“It was kind of hard going against one of her best friends,” said Sydney’s mother, Diane Wash. Nevertheless, “Sydney hit a double off of her.”

Wash was limited by a back injury for much of her junior season. It limited the speed of her pitches, and King’s Fork coach Richard Froemel generally refrained from using her as a batter to avoid aggravating the injury further.

It has been obvious she has been back to full health this season, as she has led her team to some big wins. She threw nine strikeouts and allowed only one walk to help the Lady Bulldogs defeat visiting Great Bridge High School 1-0 on March 24.

This past week, she helped King’s Fork beat host Western Branch High School 1-0 by throwing nine strikeouts and allowing only two hits, while going 2-for-3 at the plate, with an RBI-double in the fifth inning.

Diane Wash said Sydney has been under a lot of pressure to hold people to zero runs this year, and she told her daughter, “It’s tough,” but then said, “That’s how you get ready for college.”

Sydney Wash verbally committed during the summer of 2013 to play for the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and she has continued to grow as a player since then.

In addition to working on her hitting, she said, as a pitcher, “I’ve been hitting my spots better over the years.”

Her father, Rick Wash, who has watched most of her school team and travel team games, said her speed has, more or less, always been there, but it is “the strategic aspect of pitching that she’s grown in.”

Before she tackles college goals, she has a high school objective she would like to achieve after the Lady Bulldogs went to regionals for the first time last year.

“I think our whole team just wants to make it to states this year,” she said.