Kayla Kowalik Defends Her All-Star Cup Title

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Kayla Kowalik AUSL All-Star Cup catcher for Carolina Blaze in game action

Kayla Kowalik’s path from lifelong battery mate to pro softball’s reigning All-Star Cup champion — and what it means for every catcher who came to the position sideways.

Kayla Kowalik did not choose to be a catcher.

Her twin sister Gabbie was the one taking pitching lessons in New Braunfels, Texas. Their parents needed someone to be the battery mate. Kayla squatted down, put down fingers, and figured it out.

That was not the traditional path. But the path worked.

Fifteen years later, Kowalik is a professional catcher for the Carolina Blaze of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League — the top professional softball league in the country. On August 8, she opens the 2026 AUSL All-Star Cup as a team captain. She arrives as the defending champion.

The AUSL All-Star Cup is a standalone competition held after the regular season. Players earn leaderboard points by winning games and collecting individual performance awards. The player with the most points at the end is crowned champion. In 2025, that player was Kowalik. She finished with 1,590 points — first place overall — leading the field in batting average (.486), hits (17), RBIs (11), total bases (27), and MVP award points (300). She won her first eight games. She won all of it.

To get there, she spent five seasons turning a backyard education into a Division I career at the University of Kentucky. She left Lexington as the Wildcats’ all-time leader in hits (353), triples (24), runs scored (262), and total bases (508). The 2021 Johnny Bench Award went to her. That award is given each year to the top Division I softball catcher in the country. She was also a First Team All-American. By the time she went pro, Extra Innings Softball ranked her the No. 1 catcher in the nation.

None of that came from a textbook approach. The AUSL has described her catching style as “untraditional” — a product of learning on the fly rather than copying someone else’s form. She built her game the way she built her career: by working it out.

What a catcher can learn from this

There is no one correct way to become a catcher.

Kowalik started because her sister needed someone to throw to. Her style behind the plate looks different from what the coaching manuals prescribe. But she won the Johnny Bench Award. She won the All-Star Cup. She is about to defend it.

If you came to catching sideways — if you were put there because your team needed someone, or if you are still figuring out what your own natural mechanics feel like — that is not a weakness. The catchers who figure things out on their own often develop instincts the textbook-trained ones have to learn later. The questions you ask because nobody handed you the answers become the instincts you carry into every game.

Kowalik stayed curious about her craft. She stayed in the work. You can do the same. Sweat the gear and never fear — even when the gear was never supposed to be yours.

Try this at your next practice

  • The “Figure It Out” Exchange Drill. Set up your gear and work your exchange — glove to hand, out of the crouch — but this time without a coach cueing you. Put on a video of a pro catcher (Kowalik is a good one), watch their exchange, and try to copy what you see. No instructions. Just observation and repetition. Self-taught instincts start with watching and copying, the way Kowalik started by watching her sister and figuring out what worked.
  • The New Position Challenge. If practice allows, spend 10 minutes blocking from one knee instead of the standard two-knee block. Then try it from a full squat without breaking form. Forcing yourself into unfamiliar positions builds body awareness — the same quality that lets Kowalik’s “untraditional” style produce championship-level results.
  • Build Your Own Scouting Card. After every bullpen session, write down two things about each pitcher: what their go-to pitch is, and when they tend to throw it. Keep the card in your bag. Over a season, you build the kind of game intelligence that no manual hands you — the same intelligence Kowalik built by starting from scratch.

Sources: Kowalik, Garcia and Ricketts Named Series 1 Captains (AUSL) · Catcher Kayla Kowalik crowned the 2025 All-Star Cup Champion (AUSL) · ‘Untraditional’ style makes Kayla Kowalik one of pro softball’s best catchers (AUSL)

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