As Kylie Taylor left the University of Missouri after her official visit on Dec. 4, 2016, it started to snow.
“‘This is perfect,'” thought the Ocean Springs High School freshman, enthralled by the Tigers’ “beautiful” campus. She committed to Missouri the very next day.
“I didn’t really think on it, being as young as I was,” Taylor told The Dispatch.
But the distance between southeast Mississippi and mid-Missouri — an 11-hour drive — was daunting for Taylor, who said she considers herself a “homebody” and wanted to stay closer to home. In July 2017, after the dual-threat star went 17-0, pitched to a 1.14 ERA and struck out 167 hitters while also batting .469, hitting five home runs and driving in 31 runs in her freshman season, she decommitted from the school.
“I just jumped the gun on it,” Taylor said.
Her recruitment was open again, but it didn’t stay that way for long. Shortly after decommitting from Missouri, Taylor made the four-hour trip up to Starkville to visit Mississippi State, and her decision was effectively made as soon as she stepped on campus.
“‘Oh my gosh,'” Taylor thought. “‘This is amazing. I need to go here.'”
On Aug. 11, 2017, she announced her commitment to the Bulldogs. In November of 2019, she put pen to paper on her national letter of intent, making certain her choice of a “second home.”
“Out of everywhere I went, Mississippi State felt the most like home — like a home away from home,” Taylor said. “I knew that even though I would be away from home for so long that it would be OK because I just loved Mississippi State.”
Now a senior at George County High School — Taylor transferred to the Lucedale school after three years at Ocean Springs — the two-way standout knows she’s in rare territory. Few collegiate players regularly hit and pitch, but Taylor knows she will be one of them.
“I’ve always loved to hit,” Taylor told The Dispatch. “It’s not something I kind of do on the side. I consider myself a hitter and a pitcher.”
In her sophomore and junior seasons with the Greyhounds, she kept up her excellence in both areas. In the circle, Taylor followed up her freshman year with a 1.23 ERA and 143 strikeouts in 19 appearances as a sophomore; she also hit .506, drove in 47 runs and hit 10 homers that season.
Despite a (relatively) down pitching season in 2019 — 88 strikeouts and a 1.96 ERA in 14 games — Taylor slugged eight long balls as a junior, hit .510 and drove in 54 runs in 32 games.
But a rare medical issue shut down what promised to be a standout senior year, ending Taylor’s only season at George County before it could begin — though it would have ended early regardless thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
“With everything going on right now, it is bigger than just softball,” Taylor said. “We’re all in this together getting adjusted to this new normal for now.”
This past December, she had her fourth and final surgery to address a rare condition called Haglund’s deformity, a bony enlargement on both heels that dug into her Achilles tendons.
Taylor initially had two surgeries in late 2018 in which her heel bones were shaved down to relieve pressure on her Achilles, but her journey wasn’t over.
The senior underwent two more surgeries — one in July 2019, one on Dec. 30 — to detach her Achilles, shave down more bone and clean up the area. During the same procedure, doctors also lengthened Taylor’s calf muscles, which had long felt tight due to the condition, to improve their flexibility.
While she’s still in the rehab process, Taylor said that according to her recovery timeline she should be able to take the field for the Bulldogs for fall practice.
“I have a good ways to go, but every little step being taken in therapy, nothing but progress,” Taylor said. “I definitely think I’ll be ready to go this fall.”
She wasn’t on the field for the Rebels this spring, but Taylor kept up with Mississippi State’s 25-3 season as best she could, following along via Twitter notifications when she wasn’t at school, where she could watch the Bulldogs play.
“I live out in the woods, so I can’t really stream any of the games on the internet,” Taylor said.
When she starts college in August — with a planned major in civil engineering — she is excited to be able to return to the campus that felt like home from the start.
“We just kind of clicked, I guess,” Taylor said of Mississippi State. “The first time I ever went on campus, I kind of knew … It’s just a great fit.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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