A Dream Fulfilled
Sharpsburg’s Rachel Roupe at bat for the Liberty University Flames.
Sharpsburg native Rachel Roupe leads Liberty University to a dream season
By Charles Jeffries
When Rachel Roupe was growing up in Sharpsburg, her father and a couple of his friends started a softball league to give young girls an opportunity in sports. Roupe took to the sport, loved it, and excelled as she progressed through the ranks. Playing for Boonsboro High School she was a three-time first team all-county selection, three-time Washington County hitter of the year, and ranked among the top 100 college prospects.
That landed her a scholarship to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, where her four-year career ended this spring in storybook fashion. The Flames, a program emerging on the national level, advanced to the NCAA Tournament in the bracket with No. 1 overall seed Texas A&M. A 10-5 win over Marist put Liberty in the best-of-three-game playoff with the best team in the country. After splitting the first two games, the Flames were down 3-1 late in the game. They scored twice to tie the game, and then with two runners on base, Roupe hit a three-run, game-winning home run to advance Liberty to its first appearance in the Super Regional, one step before the College World Series.
“I am so thankful that I was able to end my career at Liberty in the Super Regionals. I feel as if I conquered a goal that took many hard practices and years to accomplish,” Roupe says. “It has always been a goal of mine to get this program past a regional and to get the recognition it deserves.”
Four years ago, when she left Boonsboro, she had no idea about the journey she was embarking on.
“When I left Boonsboro to go to college, I really wanted to learn and be a sponge and be the best player I could be,” she says. “Looking at my career as a whole and reflecting, I would never have thought my college career would go the way it, and I’m very thankful.”
Few college athletes in any sport enjoy the culmination to a career that Roupe enjoyed.
“Beating Texas A&M was so surreal, and it was like watching your own childhood dreams unfold in front of you,” she says. “When I was playing, I let my training take over, and I was doing things that I didn’t think were possible.”
Her career came as no surprise to her coach, Dot Richardson, who told the student news website A Sea of Red: “When you have a talented athlete like Rachel Roupe who is locked in, it is historic. That’s what happened, history was made because she lifts up other players on the team.”
Now, Roupe has been drafted to play professionally with the Florida Vibe this summer, and she sees it as her turn to help open opportunities for girls in sports.
“I’m thankful that I get to play professional softball with the vibe and just continue to grow the sport for the younger girls who had dreams like me,” she says. “It’s awesome to see these kinds of opportunities opening up for other women sports.”