Cheyenne Central senior Brogan Allen paced the Lady Indians with 48 hits and 10 home runs while driving in 43 RBI this season. Those numbers helped her in being named the first-ever Wyoming softball player of the year by Gatorade. WTE/File
Cheyenne Central senior Brogan Allen celebrates after getting a base hit during a 14-13 loss to Campbell County in the Wyoming state tournament Friday at the Energy Capital Sports Complex in Gillette. Alex Taylor/Gillette News Record
Cheyenne Central senior Brogan Allen paced the Lady Indians with 48 hits and 10 home runs while driving in 43 RBI this season. Those numbers helped her in being named the first-ever Wyoming softball player of the year by Gatorade. WTE/File
Cheyenne Central senior Brogan Allen celebrates after getting a base hit during a 14-13 loss to Campbell County in the Wyoming state tournament Friday at the Energy Capital Sports Complex in Gillette. Alex Taylor/Gillette News Record
CHEYENNE – Brogan Allen was the first to accomplish a couple of feats during her prep softball career with Cheyenne Central.
The senior was the first player to hit a home run in Wyoming high school softball history. She also hit the first home run in a Wyoming state tournament. Now, she can add another one of those firsts to her prep résumé. Allen was announced the first Wyoming softball player of the year by Gatorade on Thursday morning. The award wasn’t handed out during 2021’s inaugural season.
“I’m definitely on cloud nine,” Allen said Thursday morning. “A bunch of people have reached out to me, and it means a lot that others see my potential and believe in me. It’s surreal, and I’m very honored and very happy.”
Allen paced the Lady Indians at the plate, batting .533 with an on-base-plus-slugging percentage of 1.736. She notched 48 hits and 10 home runs while driving in 43 runs. She pitched 26 innings, going 3-0 in the circle, and led Central to a 19-9 record and a runner-up finish at the state tournament in May.
Allen was also a stout third-baseman, where she will spend most of her time during her college career with Dawson Community College in Glendive, Montana. She committed just one error in 41 chances this season, which was good enough for a .976 fielding percentage.
The award is a product of Allen’s commitment to the sport, Central coach Carrie Barker said.
“It says a lot about her,” Barker said. “She’s put in a lot of extra effort and extra time doing things she needs to do to get better and striving for perfection, in her mind, in the off-season.”
Allen said she had made it a goal to receive the award last season, but then learned that it wasn’t going to be handed out. Again, she made it a goal at the start of this season, and kept a hot start rolling.
“It was a goal I worked really hard for last year,” she said. “But this year, getting my bat hot right away and being good at defense helped a lot. (The award) definitely crossed my mind, especially because people were telling me I could definitely get it, so I worked harder for it.”
The production and leadership Allen brought to the Indians was invaluable, Barker said, but she’ll have no problem carrying that with her to the next level.
“I’m really proud of her. She’s going to be missed immensely next year, but we see great things coming from her in the next four years,” the coach said. “I can’t wait to see what else she does.”
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