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Former Station Camp catcher Addie Lange takes road less traveled to Mizzou softball



Missouri catcher Addie Lange looks to the dugout during a recent game against Oklahoma State. Photo by By Maren Angus-Coombs

When Addie Lange was 12 years old, she made a bet with her dad that she would play softball at the University of Missouri. If it happened, he would buy her a car.

“We would literally joke about it,” Lange laughed. “He made this bet with me when I played slow-pitch softball when I was 12 and I was really bad. This is when we shook on it.”

She was playing in the Donelson Civitan league at the time so playing in the Southeastern Conference didn’t really seem possible.

Fast forward to June 17, 2021, after her sophomore season at Volunteer State Community College, Lange signed to play softball at Mizzou.

“He didn’t think it would happen and here we are,” Lange said. “I think I will get the car when I graduate.”

Lange didn’t play competitive club softball like her teammates. She played locally in recreational leagues and then travel ball for Tennessee Mojo when she was in high school, but the team stayed local for tournaments in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

The road she travelled to Columbia isn’t the typical route taken for a Power Five softball player. In fact, it’s been full of potholes and speed bumps. And at times those potholes felt more like sinkholes. 

Lange will be cruising through when all of a sudden, everything goes dark.

“I have this condition called Hemiplegic Migraine,” she said. “It basically presents as a stroke and I have to take medicine for it when it happens. It’s hereditary and it doesn’t happen all the time, but my first one was in sixth grade. I had to go to the hospital, they called stroke alert. I was paralyzed for about eight hours.”

Lange went to see a neurologist after her first incident and the doctors asked her what sport she played. She told them she was a softball catcher.

“They told me I didn’t need to be playing softball and I didn’t need to play catcher because if I got hit in the head then it could really damage my brain,” Lange said while taking deep breaths. “I just kept playing. This is my happiness”

Not long after, she was cut from the Knox Doss Middle School team. As a sixth-grader, she had never played fastpitch before. She eventually made the team aa seventh-grader and again in eighth.

When she attended tryouts at Station Camp High School, Lange and her family didn’t know what to expect but she made the team as a freshman.

“I literally could not believe it,” Lange said. “I wasn’t great but good in middle school. A lot of people are good in middle school. Anyway, I made the team and the first game comes around and I’m in the starting lineup. I was also the leadoff batter. We were all shocked.”

Lange played right field, second base, third base and finally became the everyday catcher her senior year.

Station Camp’s Addie Lange signed with Vol State Community College on Nov. 2, 2018. She was joined by her parents, David and Alicia Lange, as well as Vol State coaches Johnny Lynn and Jimmy Buckner. File photo by Zach Womble

Upon her graduation in 2019, she didn’t have many big college offers.

“I didn’t want to go Division II or Division III,” Lange said. “Something told me I would be settling. I knew in my heart I could go where I wanted to go because of the type of person I am and that’s when Johnny Lynn started coming to my games.”

Lynn, the head coach at Vol State Community College, had to convince Lange to take a chance on going to school seven minutes from her house. She committed and Lynn changed the course of her career.

“Coach Lynn had a meeting with me at the beginning of my first year and asked me, ‘What’s your goal? I told him I wanted to play SEC. He just looked at me with wide eyes and said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Lynn knew he could push Lange to where she needed to be. He was tough on her. There were several days she went home crying, but she knew he was keeping his end of their deal. He was pushing her to attain her goal of playing in the SEC.

After 18 games, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Her freshman season abruptly ended. At that point in the year, she was batting .526 with 30 hits, eight doubles, 11 home runs, 42 RBIs and 30 runs scored. 

When she returned for the 2021 season, she had a career year. She batted .435 with 21 homers, 81 RBIs, 13 doubles, three triples and became a first-team JUCO All-American. 

Because of COVID, Lange had the option of returning to Vol State for another season. Lynn was fielding calls left and right for his catcher, but the one call Lange wanted hadn’t come yet.

Until she went on vacation to her grandmother’s house in Missouri.

“I sent an email to Coach (Larissa) Anderson and told her that I was in Lake of the Ozarks and that I would love to talk to her,” Lange said. “The next morning, my family came in my room, woke me up and told me to look at my email.”

Sitting in her inbox was a reply from Anderson.

“I literally thought I was going to die. I immediately had to go to the bathroom and then she called me. I was shaking,” Lange said. “I must’ve blacked out because I don’t remember anything she said except for the invite to come meet her the next day.”

Anderson led the Lange family on a tour around the Missouri campus. They met for five hours. They laughed, they cried and Lange accepted the coach’s offer on the spot.

“It was top seven days of my life right there,” Lange said.

As a junior transfer in 2022, Lange was forced to medically redshirt due to a knee injury. This season, she returned to the field to battle for the starting catcher job. 

On Feb. 3, 2023, she suited up for Mizzou’s annual Black and Gold game. She picked off a runner at third, came off the field in the second inning, looked at her pitcher and her world began to go dark again.

Lange knew what was happening except she hadn’t had a migraine in years. That week, she had five.

“I thought I was never going to play again,” Lange said while fighting tears. “My coaches sent me home. Told me I needed to rest and get my body right because I needed to get myself back to normal.”

Lange was home for three days. She spent time with her family and her dog. She did what she needed to do to improve every day and on Feb. 11, she made her first start as a Mizzou Tiger. She also recorded her first career hit off All-American pitcher Danielle Williams.

“I started the Northwestern game and it was top seven days of my life,” Lange said while wiping tears from her face. “It’s just crazy how things worked out in such a small period of time.”

Lange has started 10 of Mizzou’s 23 games this season and reached this point in her career on her own terms. She has learned to be grateful for the small things and appreciative of every stop she’s made along the way.

Her advice to younger players?

“If you have the willpower and you know that you can do something then you can do it,” Lange said. “I’d say do what you gotta do but also live your life. Don’t let it (softball) consume you because you’re more than just softball.”

Addie Lange played softball at Vol State Community College in 2020 and 2021. File photo