Jenna Thompson had a memorable year playing softball. The Pennsbury junior describes her journey in the Q&A below. (Photos provided courtesy of Darryl Rule of J&D Photography and Thompson family)
2024
It’s been quite a year for Jenna Thompson.
The Pennsbury junior, who has been playing softball for as long as she can remember, has been involved in travel almost as long.
Travel is nothing new to elite softball players, whose teams spend their summers traversing the country for one tournament after another. Thompson has been there and done that, including last summer as a member of the PA Bombers.
But that’s just the beginning for Thompson, who has taken travel to the next level as a member of Great Britain’s national team. The past year included a trip to Brazil in June with the Great Britain U18 squad to compete in World Cup pool play. In July, she traveled with the Great Britain’s U22 team to the European Championships in Kutknow, Poland, where her squad won bronze.
In September, Thompson was in the Netherlands with Great Britain’s women’s national team that captured silver.
“At one point, I had been in Tennessee for a softball showcase, and then I flew straight to Oklahoma for training camp, so I was gone for two weeks,” Thompson said.
To say it’s been quite a ride would be an understatement.
“It was super fun,” Thompson said. “It was definitely a year of learning and absorbing new knowledge. It was a year with highs and lows especially being able to recognize the mental aspect of the game more because it can be super tough if the last event that you went to you weren’t doing so great, and then you have a whole new event and have to perform. It’s like a fresh start.
“It definitely opened my eyes about the game mentally. I learned so much, I met so many new great people. I have so many role models to look up to that I met last year. It was a great year overall.”
And if all that travel wasn’t enough, Thompson ended a recruiting battle for her talents this fall by giving a verbal commitment to Purdue University after visits with schools from the Big 10, Big 12, ACC and the Sunbelt conferences.
“I was well aware that Purdue had an excellent academic reputation and a long history of successful sports teams,” Thompson said. “When my family and I visited in October, we were blown away by the coaching staff, the athletic facilities and the tools available to enable student-athletes to succeed.
“After experiencing this and touring the campus in West Lafayette, IN, Purdue really felt like a great fit for me. It just felt right. I left there very excited to be a part of their program. Also, Coach Maggie (Magali Frezzotti) played for the national softball team of Argentina for 13 years, so she understands and is supportive of my goals to play for Great Britain in the LA 2028 Olympics. “
But for now, Thompson – who is enrolled in Pennsbury’s virtual program – is in training for this year’s tryouts.
“I have to follow a training program – I’m lifting four times a week with speed and agility once or twice a week mixed in there,” she said. “This year, we don’t have a training camp. We’ll be sending in virtual things like timed running, footwork, in-game footage.”
Next week, winter workouts begin for her Pennsbury softball team. More than a few of her high school teammates – past and present – were members of a Pennsbury Gems team that captured the state title when they were youngsters.
Interestingly, her mother, Nanci Murphy Thompson, played for Pennsbury coach Frank McSherry as well.
“Her mom was a really good player,” said the Falcons’ coach, going on to recall a memorable moment for Thompson during her sophomore season. “She came off the bench in our Neshaminy night game, and she hit a bomb. She’s really strong – there’s no doubt about it. She’s a strong, strong kid.
“I’m just happy for her success. It’s such a cool experience. She’s going to be one of our top players, there’s no doubt about it. She’s a good kid from a nice family.”
The veteran coach acknowledge he has already seen a change in Thompson.
“It certainly helped her confidence,” McSherry said. “She saw softball like she won’t see in high school. It’s really great for her.
“She’ll make our team better, that’s for sure. She’s pretty mature. We had a meeting in December. She’s a junior, and normally juniors sit back, and they defer to the seniors, but she was all in on the meeting and anything we forgot or didn’t say – she filled in for the kids. She helped out with some of our younger kids to get on our Remind and how to do it. She has the potential to be a big-time team leader.”
In addition to training for her high school and the Great Britain circuit, Thompson is now a member of Virginia Unity on the travel circuit.
“There are girls from everywhere,” she said. “We have about three girls that live in the same state, and that’s Texas. We have girls from New York, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio.
“It’s pretty much – everyone is everywhere. We practice four or five times a year, and it’s normally a weekend practice. Outside of that, I hit almost every day, whether it’s by myself or with my hitting coach. Fielding - I do almost every day. It’s a lot of training on my own, so that I can be better when I come back to my team.
“One of my main goals for 2025 is to try out and make the Great Britian U18 national team and bring home a gold medal in the European championships this summer in Pamplona, Spain.”
Thompson’s journey – which is far from over - has been an interesting one.
How did you become involved with the Great Britain softball program?
“My dad (Stephen Thompson) is British. He was born in St. Helens which is outside of Liverpool in England. He played rugby and soccer growing up. He came to the United States on a trip, and he met my mom. He liked her, and she liked him, so they got married, and he moved over here, so through him, I get dual citizenship.
“I became involved with the team through my dad’s cousin Angie. Her daughter was playing on one of the teams. This was before COVID, so my parents had heard about the program, and
they looked into it. You have to make videos and take some metrics and stuff like that and send them in. After a couple months, I got an email that I qualified for the under-13 team. Then COVID was a really huge thing, and we didn’t have an event to go to, so there was really nothing that year.
“I resumed the next year. “Two years ago when we went there were some issues with our roster, so we were disqualified, but we got to play our games. We didn’t really do much.
“Going into my freshman year of high school I played on the under-18 team, and we played in the European Championships and finished fifth.
“Most of the teams have girls from all over in the States and stuff, so you go over to where it’s being held. It was being held in the Netherlands that year. We flew in and everyone arrives on a set day, and you get picked up at the airport. You have a team dinner. You also have to try to stay awake that day to get adjusted to the time, so it’s certainly a really long day. We practice normally a couple days before or a day before – it really depends, and then we play.:
What was your training camp experience like in Oklahoma City last summer.
“The training camp is after school ends in June. It was really, really cool. It’s definitely crazy because I’m at home watching these girls in the World Series on my team. I go and I’m playing against them, but it teaches you that you can’t really think about the name that’s pitching to you because the game’s the same, and the game doesn’t know how good the girl pitching is or how good you are at hitting. You’ve just got to play it.”
How do you develop a camaraderie since the players are from all over the world?
“That’s not uncommon. The (summer) travel team I’m on – we’re really from all over. A lot of the time especially last year with the under 18s, we met on the first day. We all just really, really got along. We were playing cards in the basement of our hotel. It’s like we step out on the field, we all click, and it’s just there.
“(The tournament) is normally about 6-7 days long. When you travel, some people will travel with their family, and some people will travel alone, and their family won’t come. As a team, we stay at our own hotel. We have roommates. It’s very professional. We’re separated from our families. We see them after the games and stuff, but we don’t stay with them.”
What is the toughest part of doing this?
“Definitely the time changes. Your body has to really adjust the first day. Otherwise, it’s going to take a really long time, and it could affect how you perform, and it definitely can affect you mentally because if you’re running off of two hours of sleep – you’re not thinking properly. I feel like that’s very difficult. That was probably the toughest thing for me.”
Did you go into the U22 European Championships last summer with high expectations or did the bronze exceed your expectations?
“We definitely went there with the intention to medal, to bring home some hardware. I feel like we kind of knew what we were there for. We were all focused and very ready for it, very looking forward. I don’t know how to describe it – we were just very focused. We went there with the intent to bring home a medal, and we did. I feel like there’s always room for improvement, but I think we’re really happy with how we did.
“My best memory was beating the Czech Republic in bracket play and then the next day we beat them again to win the bronze medal.”
What was the highlight of competing with the Great Britain women’s team in the Euro Championships in September?
“The highlights were winning a silver medal, having the best training from an excellent coaching staff, and learning from my more experienced teammates, many of whom play or played for NCAA teams, such as USF, Santa Clara, Florida State, Oklahoma State, Mizzou, and UCF.
“Team bonding at a sushi restaurant in the Netherlands was also a highlight and a very fun night out.”
With all that traveling, what was your favorite country?
“My favorite country was probably Brazil because it was really cool to be able to go to South America. In the opening ceremony, we had dancers there. It was cool to see the culture and everything. It was something totally new and it was really awesome. Sao Paulo was so pretty, and there’s a lot to do, and there’s really great food.
I think all the countries are great in their own way.”
What are the facilities like?
“Most of the time they’re stadium fields. They’re super well-taken care of. The European countries are really investing time and resources into the sport, which is great because it will help the sport grow, and it’s becoming more popular over there. There’s more home-grown talent growing up, which is good and very important, so it’s nice to see they take it seriously.”
How would you compare the level of competition you faced to travel or school ball? “The competition there is amazing. You’re playing against pitchers from the SEC like Alexia Lacatena from Italy. She is at the University of Kentucky. One pitcher on our team Paytn Monticelli is from Oklahoma, and she just won the national championship last spring. The competition there is definitely intense, and it’s definitely different.”
What did you learn about yourself as a player through the experience?
“Definitely perseverance. In our first game against Italy, it was really back and forth with the score and stuff. Definitely being able to push through that. Even though we didn’t win that game, it was a really great game with a lot of fight. It was probably one of the best games I’ve ever played in having fun-wise.”
How will this experience impact you on your travel and school team?
Being around the women’s team and especially being around very high level players in college and even those who’ve graduated college - they gave me really great advice. There were times I was nervous and really scared to play because I was 16 and I was playing with people who were 32.
“It definitely helped me develop into a better leader. It helped me understand the stressful moments because everyone goes through them, everyone gets super nervous. It’s given me the ability to help with that more. It showed me an example of true leadership and how to really bring a team together.”
What kind of support did you receive from your family, your school and your community? “The support that I get is amazing. My teams and my coaches wish me good luck. Some of them even watch me when they get a chance. It’s really nice especially some of my high school teammates are super, super supportive, and that just makes me more excited to get back on the field with them this year. I’m super excited for that too because all the girls are so awesome, and they’re capable of such great things. They’re just amazing people.”
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