DePere, WI
Notre Dame Elementary Raiders
Favorite foods: Hmmm.. I LOVE French fries but am equally obsessed with peanut butter. Just plain ‘ol peanut butter 😉
Favorite animal: Baby goats. Preferably doing goat parkour.
Spirit animal: Lion. I- am very much a Leo. Even took a quiz to figure this out and the result was lion. Strength, assertiveness and personal power. Yes, that’s me! haha
Helen joined Sea Kittens for the Fall 2017 season and immediately made a name for herself at third base with an uncanny ability to snag at least one hard line drive ticketed for left field before it could reach its destination. Games during her rookie season seemed incomplete until she’d done her thing. By her third game with the cats she’d earned her first nickname. With Sea Kittens down 12-10 and down to their final out, Bradley kept the team alive with a run-scoring single. Alex Latzka followed with a drive that skipped to the right-field fence. Bradley was off on contact with Latzka in hot pursuit- the duo made it home just before the ball for a walk-off win, remembered as the chase of the Puma and the Rabbit. The other nickname- which hasn’t come up yet- is “Boo,” as in “Boo Bradley.” Or maybe “Boo Rabbit…” Seriously- say it out loud. “Let’s go, Boo Rabbit!” It’s fun.
Two games later the Rabbit indelibly inked her name in Sea Kitten lore, swatting a three-run inside-the-park home run against Steal Your Base during a 13-run fourth inning that broke a tight game wide open – and Bradley notes that trip around the bases as her favorite Sea Kitten moment to date- that and the awesome support and cheering from the team.
She now says her pre-game ritual is doing the elliptical for 20-30 minutes to warm up the leg muscles, clearly in anticipation of being off to the races again.
FUN FACT: Helen is only the third left-handed batter in Sea kitten history after Stephani Pescitelli and the switch-hitting Heidibadger NelsonA lifetime softballer, one of Helen’s distinct memories might be a fuzzy one: playing third base in a high school summer tournament, going for a pop fly on the infield and colliding with the catcher. the first and only time she was carried off the field on a stretcher. “I also remember waving at the crowd as I was wheeled away- they loved that. I had a serious concussion.” Luckily, Bradley walked off the field under her own power after a rather physical summer season with Bottomfeeders in Summer 2018. In her second Fall season with Los Gatitos, Bradley joined another exclusive club by notching two triples in a mere 14 at-bats. She joined Hansen and Mama Cat O’Brien as the only Sea Kitten women to have accomplished the feat. Her 16 RBI across the Fall 2017 and 2018 campaigns is the second-highest two-season total- Summer or Fall- among the Cats’ women. 2021 Outlook: The Boo Rabbit find herself on top of the all-time list of Sea Kitten women with a 0.456 career batting average, and the whole “I do this left-handed” thing delights and amazes the Sea Kitten brethren. Bradley upped her batting average to a gaudy 0.538 in calendar year 2019, and has seen her numbers jump upward each season she’s played. The questions in scouting circle- and certainly not limited to Bradly- is what will the loss of the 2020 season so to that progression? Sea Kitten insiders know that Bradley wasn’t sitting still for 18 months, and her middle-of-the order bat will be just fine. With of handful of her line drives to right landing inside the line and a little hop in her step, the Boo Rabbit is a legit threat to top Mama Cat O’Brien’s summer-season record of 3 doubles; and she’s on the short list of players who could get locked in the zone and approach O’Brien’s all-season record of 9 doubles (Fall 2017). previous: With six extra-base hits under her belt in just 13 Sea Kitten games, Bradley has already moved to #2 on the all-time list for extra-base hits among Sea Kitten women, and although the sample size is small, her rate of one extra-base hit per 6.7 at-bats is a tick ahead of all-time leader Erin “Mama Cat” O’Brien’s rate of one per 10.0 at-bats (42 in 422 career at-bats in MSCR league play). Scouts are confident that Bradley’s power will play in summer league and may develop further within the longer summer season. Bradley’s versatility in the field is a plus, as she is comfortable at both infield corners as well as across the outfield. Shout it together now- “BOOOOO RABBIT!”