Nansemond River High School senior softball standout Lauren Davis has accomplished a lot for someone who is only 16 years old, and she added a key achievement to the list on Wednesday.

With family, friends, teammates and coaches looking on, she signed to play softball for the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia during a ceremony at Nansemond River.

“This is what I wanted,” Davis said. “When you play travel ball and travel and you do school ball, this is to get looked at by coaches for this, to have a signing and to ultimately get an education, but softball is how I’m getting my education, so this means the world.”

Davis has gotten an early start to a variety of things in life.

At the age of 5, she was temporarily in a private kindergarten but was deemed mature enough to move on to first grade, which she did.

“And actually, she tested out at like second and third grade reading and math,” her mother, Shalisa Davis said.

Some said 5 years old was too young to be in first grade, but no one could tell it by her grades.

“She was a straight-A student,” Shalisa Davis said. “She’s been an honor roll student all her life.”

Lauren Davis arrived at the conclusion that she wanted to play college softball at an early age, as well.

Pinpointing when it was, she said, “I started playing softball when I was 8, so I think by the time I really started playing travel, probably 11 years old.”

“By the time I got to 11 or 12, that’s when I made the decision to only play softball,” she added.

Also fitting a host of other activities into her life, Davis has been a first-chair clarinet player in a county band, worked as a babysitter, taken three years of sign language and been a member of the Beta Club and the Honor Society. As if that weren’t enough, she already knows what she wants to do for a career.

“Most 16-year-olds don’t know what they want to do, but Lauren wants to be a pharmacist,” her father, Kim Davis, said.

Her parents helped motivate her to reach this important decision by clearly outlining their post-high school expectations of her.

“With her mom and myself being veterans, Lauren was always going to school,” Kim Davis said. But if she opted not to, “her mom just said you’ve got to join the military; I told her she’s going to be a Marine.”

Kim and Shalisa Davis are retired Marines, who served for 31 years and 24 years, respectively, but this did not mean they were disappointed their daughter chose another path.

“She’s making us proud today,” Kim Davis said. Noting the University of the Sciences has both an impressive pharmacy program and a softball team that wanted his daughter to play for it, he added, “We are one happy momma and daddy.”

Between the GI bill and generous athletic and academic scholarships from the school, Lauren Davis’ college costs are covered.

She is expected to play shortstop for the Devils.