As soon as Texas State softball catcher Megan Kelnar reached the summer of her junior year at Hays High School, she developed a habit.
Nearly every day, she’d craft an email for Bobcats head coach Ricci Woodard. Whether it was after a win, a loss or just to inform Woodard of her week’s schedule, Kelnar flooded her coach’s inbox with messages for months.
“One of the first things she told me was that I was very persistent in my emails,” Kelnar said.
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Kelnar’s parents are Texas State alumni. They used to take her to Bobcat Ballpark when she was a child, where she’d watch Texas State play and attend softball camps. Kelnar said that once she conceptualized the idea of college sports, her goal became playing at Texas State. Now a Bobcats senior, the catcher has become a steady contributor, persevering through gruesome injuries, setbacks and countless hours of work.
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Kelnar has never been the most talented player on the field, but her natural ambition mixed with a love of the grind eventually turned her college dreams into reality.
A perfectionist then, a perfectionist now
Kelnar’s father, Kevin, said he isn’t exactly sure where his daughter got her perfectionism from. He said she’ll drive home to Kyle from San Marcos, where she spends all day practicing softball and attending classes, and then sit down at her sewing machine for hours. Not because she has to. It’s what she wants to do.
Texas State Bobcats catcher Megan Kelnar (00) walks into the dugout during the first inning as the Bobcats take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Bobcat Softball Stadium in San Marcos, April 15, 2026.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
She’s incapable of not putting her all into anything to which she’s committed, Kevin Kelnar said, whether that’s sewing, welding, academics and, obviously, softball. No one’s ever had to pressure his daughter into spending the mythical 10,000 hours to master her disciplines.
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“It’s not because anyone made her do it. She wants to be the best,” he said.
It’s part of the reason Kelnar decided to commit to Texas State in the first place. When Woodard finally scouted Kelnar and invited her to campus, the coach was very upfront about what Kelnar’s expectations should be.
Woodard’s coaching style is blunt. She doesn’t often spare feelings, and she wanted Kelnar to understand that and be OK with it. What Woodard didn’t know at the time was that it matched Kelnar’s personality perfectly. It only made her more sure in her decision to commit to the Bobcats.
“Give it to me straight,” Kelnar told her. “What do I need to work on, what do I not? Let’s not tiptoe around the subject.”
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Kevin Kelnar said he’s never had to push Megan or tell her to ease up. She’s always seemed to have a good sense of her limitations. Some of it was intrinsic, some of it built after she suffered the biggest injury of her life as a sophomore year at Hays: Playing in center field, running to catch a fly ball, she stepped awkwardly into the fence and felt a snap in her leg.
The biggest struggle of her career
Kelnar broke her tibia and fibula in half when chasing down that fly ball. Surgeons inserted four screws and a metal rod into her leg as part of her recovery.
Then, two weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation. Kelnar said it was as if she’d seen her softball career wiped out from under her. She couldn’t see any of her friends during one of the darkest times of her life. No one would have blamed her if she had decided to quit her softball career right then.
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“I could not have done it,” Kevin Kelnar said, shaking his head.
X-ray image of the injury Texas State catcher Megan Kelnar suffered during her sophomore year of high school.
Texas State University
But his daughter could. She wasn’t allowed to go to physical therapy because of quarantine, so she did it over Zoom. The rehabilitation process required consistency and determination, two things she has in spades. But how quickly Kelnar returned to the field required an extraordinary amount of the latter.
“Well, you have a rod in your leg. You’re not gonna break it again,” one of Kelnar’s doctors told her. “You can put your weight on it, it’s just how much pain can you bear?”
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Eventually, Kevin Kelnar took his daughter to the local middle school track, hoping to get her jogging for the first time since the injury. As they walked toward the straightaway, he suggested a 10-step jog. Megan wouldn’t do it.
Another lap passed. He tried to get her to jog again. She refused again. For maybe the first time, he could sense trepidation in her approach. Someone who had always been so eager to take the next step didn’t seem to trust herself to move forward.
“You’re gonna have to do it,” he said, gently pulling her aside. “Trust that the rod in there will support you.”
He left her alone for a second. Her pace quickened. A walk turned into a light run. Kelnar said her leg still bothers her during intense conditioning. Only she knows how much pain she endured in that jaunt halfway around the track. But it didn’t stop her from returning to softball. Nothing could.
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Texas State Bobcats catcher Megan Kelnar (00) bats in the third inning as the Bobcats take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Bobcat Softball Stadium in San Marcos, April 15, 2026.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
The end of the journey for Megan Kelnar
Kelnar’s been a consistent producer since she set foot on campus. She broke out last year as a junior, recording a .334 batting average and a .817 on-base plus slugging percentage. But her senior season has fallen far berlow her standards. Her aveage has dropped to .182, her OPS to .511. She’s had to rewire her brain, she said, to stop constantly searching for solutions, to stop overthinking.
“There’s not really one golden fix,” Woodard said. “Because if there was, Megan would already have it.”
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Amid Kelnar’s struggles at the plate, she’s still the one that Bobcats pitchers Madison Azua and Emma Strood prefer to have behind it, Woodard said. The catcher has a knack for knowing when to call timeouts, and she usually understands what her pitcher needs from her in the moment.
An expert in body language, Kelnar changes her approach based on what she sees in the circle. Sometimes she calls time just to give Stroud a moment to catch her breath or reset herself. Sometimes it’s to play rock-scissors-paper with Azua, to distract her from the moment.
“Her motto has always been she’s there to make the pitcher look good,” Kevin Kelnar said.
Still, despite her passion for playing softball, Kelnar holds perspective. She admits that while going professional would be incredible, she likely doesn’t have the required batting skills for the next level. Out of the nine players in her signing class, she’s one of four who have made it to their senior season. She understands that itself is an incredible accomplishment.
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She has come to terms that this will probably be her final season playing softball. She’ll start her Doctorate of Physical Therapy at the University of St. Augustine in September. For now, she’s focused on doing whatever she can to extend Texas State’s season for as long as possible.
Kevin Kelnar said his daughter has never been one to focus on results over process. She enjoys the work too much. But for a moment, she reminisces on what all of her effort has brought her. The friendships, lessons and opportunities she’s been granted along the way. The old photos that her mom sent her of a little girl with a clumsy sketch of a softball pitcher she had seen at the ballpark.
“It was definitely a dream come true,” she said.
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Texas State catcher Megan Kelnar as a child holding a drawing of a softball pitcher.
Texas State University