The 2024 Washington's Gatorade Player of the Year and UNLV Softball freshman pitcher, Yanina Sherwood, looks to continue her success on the softball field heading into her first collegiate softball season. Moving to Nevada from Washington to compete in Division 1 softball is no easy feat. As she looks toward her first season with the Rebels, we sat down with Sherwood to get a glimpse into her life beyond the diamond.
 
Tell me about yourself, how would you describe yourself in three words?
Oooh! I would probably say determined, bubbly, and happy! Definitely happy. I am always smiling for sure!
 
What do you like to do on your days off and on your free time?
I love to sleep! I love to nap! My naps last like three hours. But also, my friends and I took advantage of doing stuff like going to the Sphere, we went inside and watched the show. We like experiencing things around town because this is Las Vegas. We have to make fun of it while still being smart because we are here for softball.
 
Have you found yourself getting involved in school activities?
Yes! I've been to every single home football game. I go with our team. We are always on the jumbotron. It's so funny. During the Syracuse game we were on it five times! Especially the first week I was out here for Rebel Week, I went to a ton of freshmen activities. I went to the homecoming parade, and a bunch of other stuff. I get the time to do a lot of those things which is nice because our schedule is more in the morning and you get your nights, which is when most of the stuff happens. So, if I have the energy I definitely do it and even if I don't have the energy, I try to do it because it's fun!
 
What are you passionate about?
Back home I really loved doing crossfit, I don't have time now because I weight lift here with everybody else but I will definitely do that when I go back home. I love hiking. It's a great thing to be in nature and just experiencing the trees and the air. Especially in Washington, there's so much green everywhere. I love music. I played an instrument for eight years, a tenor saxophone, but I don't play it anymore. I've sung before. My favorite music genre is RnB, I do like my little throwbacks like Bruno Mars, my Rihanna, all that kind of stuff.
 
What is on your bucket list? What is your #1?
I have two! One that is here in Las Vegas and one in general. Actually, I already crossed off the number one thing I wanted to do here in Las Vegas which was visiting the Sphere to watch a show. I'm obsessed with the Sphere; you can ask all of my teammates. We have lifts on Wednesday mornings with our baseball team and there is a perfect view of the Sphere. The emoji is my favorite one, so when I see it, I stop my lift and look at it. Everyone is like 'Yanina' and I'm like okay okay I'll go. But that was definitely a big one. I also want to build my own facility someday, to do stuff with softball or even lifting or crossfit stuff. Or maybe half crossfit half cages, stuff like that because I love coaching. I did that when I was back at home and when I didn't have practice. I would stay later and help the younger girls or even the older girls.
 
What is your favorite quote?
I have a couple! One of them is that 'you can be your biggest critic, but you also need to be your biggest fan' because I am very hard on myself, so making sure that I take what I have done well, knowing what I can control and remember not to beat myself up over the bad. Then, 'mind over matter' because your body can take more than you think it can, making sure to push through that because everyone around needs me so I do it for them but I also do it for me to prove to myself that you can overcome anything.
 
If you could play any other sport besides softball, what would it be?
Volleyball! I played volleyball in high school and I was a three-time letterwinner. I played the middle and right side. I like the right side better than the middle because you didn't have to go everywhere and block as much but I was good at blocking so that's why they kept me in the middle. I think it's fun and I'm tall. I can jump pretty decently if I keep jumping. Or a piece of me says, I would swim. I feel like it would be fun to swim all the time. I enjoy swimming, I like water, but volleyball for sure!
 
What goal are you working towards right now?
I think getting better every day is the goaI. I think what Coach (Anthony) Aresco gives us is a lot of great things and knowing how to do so many more of those little things to have more success like inching a pitch over, what pitch to throw and what counts so stuff like that and I would have decent knowledge of it but now that you are facing a whole group of their hitters and what they want and they love and they're great. Knowing you won't get away with as many things is part of learning and figuring out that stuff is a goal of mine. Even going over video and talking it over, learning more like the way a coach processes the game so I also have the same mindset to do it in the same way.
 
When you go back home to family in Washington, what do you enjoy doing?
With my mom it's watching movies, we always watch movies, especially Christmas I know that she'll make me watch Hallmark movies. With my dad it's just going to Starbucks, driving around, we always listen to music. He loves his music; he turns the volume up so loud in the car driving around or hiking with my mom and brother. We always did that in the summer, it was our thing. It's kind of how I discovered I loved it because it was family time and I got to spend time with them and my brother. Honestly, I'm a quality time type of person so just being with them in the vicinity of my area that's enough for me.
 
I've read that you played international softball, how was that?
Yes! I played for Team Peru my sophomore year of high school, sadly I haven't been able to do it again. I've been trying to find a time, it's just because I've always had softball tournaments so this summer, I'll probably end up going with them because I have the summer off. I'll play with Team Peru again since I haven't played for them in two or three years but that has probably been one of the greatest experiences ever traveling and meeting people from where my ethnicity is from, where my mom was born. Their personalities are just like me: loud, funny, they laugh a lot, scream, dance so just being around those types of people was an amazing experience!