For the next three months we all trained as a team, and when we were not training as a team we trained individually at home, with our parents, and sometimes a couple girls would get together and go to the batting cages. Every weekend we had a tournament, and every weekend we gradually progressed, weather it was in attitude, hitting and fielding mechanics, or actually winning a few games. By the end of the season we had all bonded. We knew each other, and trusted each other to the highest level, and we knew each others capabilities. We had timings down, we knew if there was a double play at the last minute our second basemen or shortstop would be at the bag to make the catch and throw for the double play. We knew if coach gave us the steal signal and the batter behind us was to bunt she would either get it down or stall so we could make the sprint simply. Our team had a trust in each other that best friends or five years do not. We may not have had a mental bond, but we knew we could rely on each other, and we came out of the season with the new found knowledge that if you work hard at something you can succeed.

The summer season that followed was a great one. We played teams that at the beginning of last season would have slaughtered us, and we not only kept up with them, but we beat them. Our practice had gotten even more grueling but after seeing the results we had the last season, no one seamed to mind.

What we thought was a normal tournament in Modesto two months into our summer season turned out to be one of the happiest days in our softball careers. What our coaching staff failed to tell us was that the Modesto tournament we were playing in was a state qualifier for the Western Nationals in Florida. We played seven games in two days and took third place not knowing the next tournament we would take place in would be the Western Nationals.

After the game the tournament director and our coaching staff passed out our third place medals. Once the small honoring ceremony was over our coach casually, as if it was nothing, informed us that first, second, and third place teams in the tournament would be sent to Florida for the Western Nationals. As we sat trying to register the thought, the quietest girl on our team screamed "Don't you guys get it?" she asked excitedly jumping up and down, "we are going to Florida"! Within seconds all of the girls on our team where jumping up and down screaming with delight. We had proved to ourselves, our parents, and or coaching staff that anything was possible with hard work and persistence.

Junior College Softball Scholarships.

Today more than forty million people play it each summer, making softball the No. one team participant sport in the USA.