Softball, softball, traveling, and more softball

It has been a while since I have been able to post, but as the title states, it has been softball, softball, traveling, and more softball. I wouldn’t change a thing.

The last I checked in was after the Central American and Caribbean games. Since then, I have competed in a World Championship, the Women’s European Premier Cup, as well as finishing up the regular season with my Italian professional team, Rhea.

Let me tell you, the World Championship in Chiba Japan was incredible. The Japanese people poured so much support into the games, coming and cheering on different countries, as well as huge turnouts for their home team, Japan. While we may not have finished how we would have liked to, this experience was a dream come true for me.

Growing up, I always said I wanted to play professionally in Japan. Last summer, I was able to coach and work for Sports Camps of America all over Japan. I pitched while I was there, but never in a game and I never thought that dream would come true. Then I was able to take the field against the Japanese national team, in Japan, at the World Championship. To say I had fun was an understatement. The Venezuelan team competed with everything we had and we surprised a lot of people with the score (although we still lost).

The World Championship continued with games against teams from all over the world. Each national team had their own style of play, native to where they were from with some regional tendencies. Japan, China, and Chinese Taipei had a great deal of lefties and utilized the small ball, while Australia used their powerful play, with the United States and Canada havingstrategic all around skill. The Venezuelan team also had the incredible opportunity to face New Zealand who performed the Hakka before our placement game.

After the World Championship, I flew back to Italy (with a layover in Qatar) to compete for Holland's Team Olympia of Haarlem at the Women’s European Premier Cup in Forli, Italy. It was

a lot of fun getting to play and interact with the girls from the Netherlands team, a great deal who were also on the Netherlands National Team (with one player also on the Great Britain National Team) and share stories about our experiences at the World Championship. We also took a day trip to the beach and the Republic of San Marino, which was a bucket list trip for me, being from the United States' San Marino and all. We finished fourth in the tournament after a lot of intense and hard fought games.

And now I am back in Caronno Pertusella, Italy playing for Team Rhea! After a complete trip around the globe, I am happy to be back home and playing my team. We are currently in the second half of the season with our last four regular season games this weekend. After this weekend, we will hopefully be playing in the playoffs. As we have not been playing at home lately, we haven’t had the video stream, so I will do my best to keep everyone updated!

Since being back in Italy, I have been able to take trips to Rome, St. Mortiz Switzerland (I will do a post about this trip and how you can do it later), and to the top of the Duomo in Milan!

Thank you to everyone who has followed me on this incredible journey that I never would have imagined for myself. God has a plan and I am excited to see where his path will lead me. Right now as you can see, it has been softball, softball, traveling, and more softball.

I will never forget the summer of 2018 and everyone who made it possible!