Prairie View senior centerfielder Ja’Naiya Thomas won’t complain about her years playing for the University of Houston.
But Thomas was missing something, and she set out to find it after entering the transfer portal last spring. A conversation with a friend, an email, and a campus visit to The Hill made it clear to Thomas that the Prairie View softball program was what she needed.
“Whenever players are getting recruited, they expect a certain thing when they get to the school that they are going to,” Thomas said. “I pretty much figured out that UH wasn’t the place for me. I needed a better culture, just a family environment.
“I just wanted to feel welcomed, and what this team has given me is all of those things. I really can’t ask for anything more than that. That’s all I wanted out of this experience.”
Thomas also wanted to be part of a winning culture, and that is something else the Panthers could provide as consistently one of the top SWAC teams that competes each spring for the league titles and a spot in the NCAA Regionals. It was like Prairie View and Coach Vernon Bland’s program checked all of the boxes.
Reaching out to friend Jaylyn Davis, who was a senior with the Panthers last season, got the ball rolling.
“Over the years, when I was at UH, I would always see Prairie View winning SWAC championships and Prairie View making it to the NCAA Regionals and I really wanted to be a part of that,” said Thomas, whose nickname around the team is JT. “So that was a pretty easy decision for me.
“I knew if my old school didn’t work out, I knew where I wanted to be. And I wanted to get the HBCU experience in my life.”
Once we saw she hit the portal we reached out immediately, she responded and came down on visit. And that was a done deal two or three weeks after she got into the portal. It was a quick process
Vernon Bland, Prairie View coach on landing Ja’Naiya Thomas
So far, it’s been a smooth transition for the Cypress Creek product. Thomas has come in and been the bat that Bland needed while also being the base runner and stealer who was missing in the lineup last season.
She leads the team in batting (.354) from the middle of the lineup and is also pacing the Panthers with 40 RBI, while she has been successful on 9 of 11 stolen base attempts. Thomas also has 35 hits and a team-leading 11 doubles.
Thomas has been the addition Bland was looking for as he transitions his team from being stocked with power home run hitters to a team that puts the ball in play, moves runners and forces opponents to play error-free softball.
“She has been a solid bat, somebody I can count on to come through,” Bland said.
But even bigger, Thomas has been the leader the Panthers needed, and Bland had no problem putting her in that role almost immediately this season.
“I made her a captain kind of early but I just wanted for them to have a different voice, somebody who has played at a higher level and played against the Oklahomas on a regular basis,” said Bland, whose Panthers lead the SWAC West with a 16-3 league record and 22-19 overall. “We played them in regionals, but she played the bigger schools on a regular basis.”
Admittedly, Thomas says the leadership part has been her biggest learning curve and a part of her game she has to work at daily.
“Just being a great leader, being vocal is one of the things I want to work on and knowing how to say things without it being an aggressive tone,” said Thomas, who was named SWAC Newcomer of the Week after an impressive showing in February’s HBCU Softball Tournament. “That’s my biggest thing, just knowing that and letting everybody know whatever I say, it just comes from the heart.”
But overall, Thomas says coming into a new team and blending with the Panthers has been relatively easy.
“Honestly, the transition has been really smooth, especially with this team,” Thomas said. “They make everything a whole lot easier, especially mentally and physically and things like that.
“Just being with this school and this team, period, has just been easy.”
JA’NAIYA THOMAS
Class: Senior
Position: Centerfield
Major: General Studies with a concentration in Health/Kinesiology
High School: Cypress Creek
Previous school: University of Houston
Key stats: Thomas leads the Panthers in batting (.354), RBI (40), Slugging% (.626) and she has been successful in 9 of 11 stolen base attempts.
She said it: “Coming into this environment and knowing it’s been successful in the past, it definitely puts a chip on all of our shoulders because everybody expects to keep winning. So it definitely gives all of us a chip on our shoulders.”
