Harold and Lessa Adams knew they were in trouble when their daughter, Chelsea, was in kindergarten.

“She would get up early on Saturday mornings to watch ESPN, not cartoons,” Lessa Adams said.

That love of sports was not only powerful enough to take a 5 year old away from cartoons, but strong enough to land Chelsea a softball career at Eastern Illinois University, more than 2,000 miles away from her TV and home in Everett, Washington.

In her last five games, Adams is 7 for 15, and has posted 6 RBIs.

In the Panthers’ last two series against Samford and Illinois State, she has homered at key points in the games and lead her team with solid defense up the middle.

In Sunday’s third game against Samford she hit a walk-off double to help her team beat the Bulldogs completing a three-game sweep of the third-place OVC team.

That double was Adam’s ninth of the season, which puts leading the team in doubles this season.

Adams is second on the team in RBIs with 14, and she boasts the third-best slugging percentage on the roster at .436.

But her hot bat isn’t the only thing Adams has been bringing to the games lately. Adams has a .974 fielding percentage.

“She brings dynamic defense, both infield and outfield,” right fielder Katy Steele said. “Chelsea has an extremely good range. It gets us up when she makes a good play on defense and this year she’s really established herself and made some great plays really setting herself above other shortstops as truly great.”

Coach Schuette has appreciated Adams’ consistency this season.

“It eases your mind on the defense; you know she’s going to make the plays and make them look easy.”

Adams has been performing well since she made her debut at Eastern in 2004. She is consistently in the top of the rankings in batting averages, runs, and fielding percentage.

Her freshman season she was the only player on the roster to start all 56 games and she is second in the program’s history for home runs with 14, only one behind first place Sandyn Short.

Adams has been a sports fan her whole life. Her mother recalls her competitive nature at a very young age.

“She would run up to people when she was with her dad and say, ‘I’ll race ya, I’ll beat ya.'”

Adams’ love for sports has continued to grow.

“I’ve been playing sports like T-ball since I was like five,” said Adams. “Then I played softball for my whole life pretty much. I did soccer and volleyball in high school, too, but softball was my favorite and the one I was best at.”

In high school, Adams started playing second base, but after roster changes in her junior and senior years she was moved to shortstop, a “natural position” for her according to Wendy Close, her coach at Cascade High School.

“I love getting ground balls,” Adams said. “I like defense, making the great plays, getting that ball that when someone hits it, everyone thinks it’s a base hit and then you make a leaping catch.”

Adams said she wasn’t always good at shortstop, but she enjoyed it and worked hard at it.

“She always wanted fly balls and grounders hit at her,” Close said. “She was always (the) first one on the field and last one off.”

Voted most inspirational player in high school, Adams didn’t leave her work ethic behind on the West coast.

“She is a very hard worker, and is always there before practice and she’s the girl who’s willing to stay after to help you work on things,” Steele said.

Adams doesn’t let her success go to her head.

“It’s always cool to be at the top, but it is more about the team than competition or percentages,” she said. “You love it when your teammates are hitting, my goal is just to play as well as I can every game to help the team win.

“If I play to my ability, things take care of themselves. I’ve played some great defense and hit the ball pretty good, and I love what (the team) is doing. We all keep doing our job, we come together, and we win.”

Adams returns home to Oregon every summer and helps coach an American Softball Association softball team there with her former coach Margo Leiter.

“She is the kind of athlete that keeps coaches like myself coaching long after their own daughters are gone from the team,” Leiter said. “Having her return last summer to help coach with me was wonderful. She became a role model to my players. She is the kind of player that when the game is over, she has left everything on the field.”