MARYSVILLE — Kylie Lopez knew her sister needed her.
So a year and a half ago, the Tomahawks star softball player made the decision to transfer to Lakewood with her younger sister, who was close to the victims of the shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School in October of 2014.
A year later, with her sister doing better, Lopez decided to come home.
The senior catcher, who spent a year playing at Lakewood with her younger sister, Carmen, returned to the Tomahawks for her senior year and has been a force on the softball field.
“It’s good because it’s my home field,” Lopez said. “It’s nice to be back where I can be comfortable and with all the girls that I was planning on playing with. It was a tough decision for me because … we were expected to do big things. But everything changed. It kind of hit me hard but I went there to support my sister because she needed me and it’s what I had to do.”
Kylie’s sister Carmen, who was a freshman at the time at Marysville Pilchuck, was close to the victims of the tragedy on Oct. 24, 2014, in which five students were shot, four fatally, before the shooter committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. After the incident, she had a hard time returning to the school and, ultimately, decided to transfer.
Kylie, then a junior, volunteered to go with her.
“A lot went into the decision,” Kylie Lopez said. “My sister was really close — those were all her best friends and she was sitting at the table with all of them when it happened — so it hit her really close. We came back to school for a little bit and then there were a couple of bomb threats so my dad was like, ‘We’re getting out of here. We’re not going to go here.’
“My sister couldn’t stay in class because she had bad anxiety,” Lopez continued. “We stopped going to school here and were thinking about where we wanted to go and she had some friends and support at Lakewood that she already knew. And it wasn’t far from our house. She really wanted to go there so we transferred over there.”
Kylie informed Marysville Pilchuck head coach Aaron Zachry of her decision and Zachry told her, essentially, to go.
“I totally understood,” Zachry said. “I said, ‘You’ve got to support your little sister. We’re going to miss you, but you’ve got to do what’s right.’
“It was sad. She was named captain of this team as a sophomore, so she was coming into her junior year supposed to be a captain. But that was the right thing to do and that’s the kind of person that she is.”
Lopez transferred to Lakewood and, along with Carmen, played softball for Lakewood head coach Travis Boortz — who was thrilled to have two new players who would quickly become an integral part of the Cougars’ 12-8 squad.
“She was a surprise to me. I didn’t even know her,” Boortz said. “I just heard that we were going to be getting two sisters from Marysville transferring in because of the shooting situation and both happened to play softball and should help because they’re really good athletes.
“I knew right away, the first day of practice, they were going to have a huge impact on the team.”
Kylie Lopez, who was in line to be a captain at Marysville Pilchuck for her junior season, instead found herself leading Lakewood and helping the Cougars’ seniors as an unofficial captain who was very vocal during games.
“She totally changed the dynamic of our team with her leadership. I don’t think we’ve ever had a kid like her,” Boortz said. “She was an incredible leader. … She gave us the attitude that, ‘We can beat anybody today.’ The confidence she brought was incredible. She kind of walked in under a couple of other captains, so she wasn’t a captain, but she stood out and had leadership abilities. Like another captain.
“I enjoyed being a part of her life for a year.”
The feeling was mutual.
“I had a lot of fun,” Lopez said. “Playing with Terah (Barrio) and all the seniors — they made it awesome and they just welcomed us like we’ve always been there and it was like home, sort of. But it was just always different. It wasn’t bad. It was fun. My sister had fun. It was just a good year to get a little settled out while we were going through a rough time.”
Lopez had a breakout year in the Cascade Conference, batting over .500. She also was the only player in the league to hit a home run against every other team in the league.
Boortz said Lopez just missed out on winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award, which went to Sultan star pitcher Shelby Jeffries.
“Kylie hit a home run off her,” Boortz said with a laugh. “She crushed the ball. … Every team knew her and every team was afraid to pitch to her because they knew she could change the game with one swing of the bat. Kylie was kind of the dark horse nobody knew about but they found out about her pretty quick.”
Going into Lopez’s senior year, her family moved to a new house in Marysville. She talked with her sister and decided that she wanted to return to Marysville Pilchuck for her senior season and close out her high school softball career where she started playing Little League years ago.
“I had thought about it through the summer,” Lopez said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’m already here (at Lakewood) so I’ll just try it out and see how it goes. But in October I came back here. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to graduate here with all my friends and in my MP stuff. Lakewood wasn’t where I belonged. I wanted to come back, play softball here, be with all my friends, be close to home and just have the home feeling again.”
Like Zachry the year before, Boortz understood and wished Lopez the best of luck at Marysville Pilchuck. After transferring for the second time in two years, she had to appeal to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to be eligible to compete in softball. The appeal was approved and Lopez let Zachry know that, once again, she was a Tomahawk.
“I said, ‘Yes! I’d love to have you!’” Zachry said. “When I heard that I was excited. And she was excited. She was a Marysville kid her whole life. She made a decision to support her sister and her family and she should have that opportunity to come back and graduate at Marysville where she grew up her whole life. She’s back where she should be.”
Upon her homecoming to Marysville Pilchuck, Lopez has picked up right where she left off. She is one of three seniors on the Tomahawks and has been a key contributor for a Marysville Pilchuck team that is 13-4 and still battling Everett for a Wesco 3A North title.
But the Tomahawks have even bigger goals in mind.
“We want to go to state,” said Lopez, who will play at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey next year. “We can definitely do it, we just have to play our game and never let up. We need to keep the pedal down the whole time. I think going through districts and going to state are our goals that we can accomplish.”
Regardless of how the season turns out, Zachry is incredibly proud of his senior catcher for what she’s done the past four years.
And he’s not just talking about the success Lopez has had on the softball field.
“Softball’s just a little blip in your life, really,” Zachry said. “Enjoy it, have fun while you do it because you can’t do it forever. Your sister is your sister forever. Your family is your family.
“Heart-wise, she’s just a great kid. I think she’s got good morals. I don’t know what we’d do not getting her back here.”
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