Verge: Padgham blazing a trail at Thompson Rivers University

Women’s National Team right-hander Raine Padgham (Abbotsford, B.C.) became the first woman to play for Thompson Rivers University this year. Photo: Baseball Canada

April 8, 2024

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

The sacrifices are in the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Raine Padgham eats, sometime in between classes, studying and baseball practice.

There’s not always time to fire up the hot plate and cook an extravagant meal when you’re juggling studies, and your first season as a university ball player with Thompson Rivers University.

But, there’s always time for baseball.

It’s that dedication to the sport that has her suiting up in the WolfPacks black and orange as the first woman to play baseball for Thompson Rivers.

Along with a passion for the sport, the 18-year-old brings a mean fastball to the team, that was clocked at 83 mph as a 15-year-old in 2020.

She made history March 31 when she pitched one inning of relief for Thompson Rivers vs. Prairie Baseball Academy.

Padgham (Abbotsford, B.C.) held them to one hit in her outing, success she credits to the work she’s put in throughout the offseason on her changeup.

“Knowing how my changeup moves and practicing it throughout the winter, I can apply it to games so I’m able to keep batters off balance, and keep them away from getting hits,” Padgham said.

The result - she was getting a lot of foul balls, and a lot of swings and misses at pitches that weren’t necessarily in the zone during her outing, she said.

It felt good, the young athlete said, to be able to apply what she’s worked on throughout the winter in a game that matters.

It’s been a transition for her over the past few months, as she moved from a high school student who lived at home, to living alone for the first time. It was a challenging adjustment at first, she said.

There wasn’t much time in her day in between classes, eating, studying, practice and working out. Staying organized has helped her. She plans out her entire week in advance, scheduling study time in between practice. That way she can see how much she has leftover for meal prep, a nap, or a lift.

She’s used to having to be self-motivated, as a pitcher for the Women’s National Team, where players often train the majority of time on their own.

However, she’s looking forward to when her exams are finished in May, and she can direct all that motivation, all that energy, just to baseball.

“I’m excited to get those over and done with, so I can just focus on baseball pretty much all day,” she said.

Although she’s played baseball all her life, starting as a three-year-old in Blast Ball, a sport that introduces the fundamentals of baseball, the pressure is a lot more intense at the university level.

Playing with the Women’s National Team has helped give her confidence taking the field with the university team.

“It’s on a pretty similar competitive level especially playing with older guys, and I feel like a lot of that confidence carried over,” she said. “Because I’m able to pitch, I’m able to really do my best on the mound and know that they have my back out there.”

And now that she’s almost survived her first year of university, she can look back at what helped her through the hectic days and tight schedules, with gratitude.

“I think getting meals in was the toughest part,” Padgham said.

“But peanut butter and jelly sandwiches really saved my life.”