JEFFERSON TWP — The words are printed on a wall in her bedroom.

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

“That's my favorite quotation,” Knoch junior Jenny Caruso said.

She's built an impressive resume' in baton twirling by living those words.

Caruso recently returned from York, where she won the Twirling Unlimited regional title in three-baton competition for the 15-over age group.

Now she's working on a four-baton routine as she will be the lone twirler among Knoch majorettes next fall. It's been 36 years since Knoch has had only one baton twirler performing with the band.

“It's fun pushing yourself and taking on new challenges,” Caruso said. “When you're competing, drops don't matter as much as the difficulty level.”

And so it goes with Caruso, who has moved through the special beginner, novice, beginner, and intermediate divisions over the past 10 years to reach the advanced level.

Longtime instructor Gwen Pysh, retiring after 40 years of working with twirlers, estimates she's had 10 girls reach that advanced level.

“She is very dedicated, she's a hard worker and recognizes that with hard work comes rewards,” Pysh said of Caruso. “She loves to be challenged and thrives in the accomplishments of those challenges.”

Earlier this year, Caruso won state titles in the Strut Off, Fancy Strut and open solo performance during competition at California (Pa.) University. The latter two titles were in her age group. The Strut Off title was for all ages, including college.

A longtime member of the Young Americans, a baton twirling and dance team based out of Saxonburg, Caruso was part of the team's national championship performance in the Junior/Seniors Halftime Routine at Notre Dame last year.

That marked the first time in Pysh's 40 years of coaching that her team captured the national title. Caruso placed fourth nationally in two-baton at Notre Dame.

“Jenny knows how to be a team player,” Pysh said. “She knows how to support the team and doesn't want to be a standout on the team. She saves that for her individual routines and performances.

“She is very outgoing when she performs. She captures your attention through her facial expressions and the difficulty of the tricks she performs.”

Caruso said she practices with her team for an hour each week. She spends another 30 minutes on her solo routine and practices on her own for 15 minutes each day “to keep up and in tune with everything.”

She has her own mini-studio in the family home. Her older sister, Allyson, now 21, also competed for a number of years.

The week before a competition, Caruso practices an hour a day for seven consecutive days at the Butler Family YMCA.

“We were building a house in the (South Butler) school district and our daughters didn't know anybody, so we signed them up with Gwen's dance school to get them involved in the community,” said Vivian Caruso, Jenny's mother.“They saw the Young Americans perform there and wanted to try twirling. We figured it'd be a temporary thing, but they both loved it.”

Jenny began baton twirling as a second-grader.

“Allyson designed the costume Jenny wore at the competition. She's very supportive of her,” Mrs. Caruso said.

Also working part-time and carrying a 3.8 grade point average entering her senior year, Caruso plans to attend college and work toward becoming a physician's assistant.

Baton twirling may or may not be in her collegiate future.

“It may be too hard to do everything,” she admitted. “The academics have to come first.”

Already teaching twirling once a week at Gwen's School of Champions, Caruso hopes to teach the sport on a regular basis down the road.

“I'd love to stay involved and that would be the way,” she said.

In the meantime, she's staying in the game — and is far from striking out.

“I'm looking forward to the (Knoch) football games and performing in front of the crowds ... Drawing a reaction from them is a great feeling,” she said. “And I want to go back to Notre Dame in 2015.”

“She'll conquer the four batons ... Jenny likes to stay a step ahead,” Pysh said. “The speed of her solo twirling, her rolls, her three-baton solo, it's all so polished.

“I'm going to miss my lessons with her. She's a special performer.”