News Photo by James Andersen Recent Alpena High School graduate Aubree Sheldon, seated, recently signed a letter of intent to join the softball program at Alpena Community College. Sheldon, who played two seasons on Alpena’s JV team and one on varsity, will be joined by several of her former Wildcat teammates at ACC.

Over the last several years, Aubree Sheldon has watched many of her Alpena High School softball teammates sign their letters of intent and go off to play at the collegiate level.

Now Sheldon will finally get her turn.

Sheldon was one of several local softball players to sign LOIs with Alpena Community College earlier this month and accomplished a goal she’s had ever since she started playing travel softball.

“It’s really exciting, since my goal since I started athletics was to get to this level,” Sheldon said. “I looked up to a lot of those girls (who went on to play college ball), even just watching them when I was on JV and they were on varsity, they were just so great that I wanted to be just like them.”

Sheldon will suit up for ACC in the spring after three successful high school seasons. As a junior, Sheldon was part of an Alpena squad that won a district championship and was just one win away from repeating as regional champions.

Sheldon spent her freshman and sophomore seasons on Alpena’s JV team and played on teams that went a combined 54-8 in 2017 and 2018.

“My three years playing were amazing. I had a lot of fun with Amy (Timm) and Ed (Prevo) and we had a really good season and really good record,” Sheldon said. “On varsity, we made it to regionals, which was really exciting for me because that was my first year being able to do that.”

Sheldon, who plans to pursue nursing studies, will be joined at ACC by several former Alpena High teammates including Jade Schultz and Dayna LaBell. But Sheldon is also looking forward to meeting some of her new teammates from other schools, many of whom she knows, but has never had a chance to play with.

“It’s going to be really exciting. I like knowing that different talent from different teams (is playing together),” Sheldon said. “You always play teams and you’re like ‘Oh, this player is super good’ and now that we get to play with some of them it’s going to be really exciting.”

Despite not getting to play her senior softball season, Sheldon has stayed active by going on runs with Schultz and playing travel ball with many of her future teammates on the Alpena Mystics travel softball team.

“It was definitely really rough getting our senior season canceled, but I really looked forward to playing travel ball and it was nice to be able to get back out on the field last month,” Sheldon said.