It was the bottom of the 7th inning. We were winning by one run, and the other team was up to bat, no outs. There were runners on 1st and 2nd base. BOOM, we heard the crack of the bat, a line drive hit through 2nd base and short stop. Three outs in one play! In this story I am going to tell you how I fell in love with softball, how I made a triple play, the confidence I felt when we won the M.V.P award and the championship game.

My love for softball started ten years ago already when I was five years old. I can remember my dad and I going outside to play catch with my five inch glove and the ball the size of a bouncy ball. I was so little then and I was only in T-ball. As I grew up each year, there was a new league that you had to move up in order to play. My first two years were both T-ball, the next two years were pony league, when the coach pitches for you. The year after that I was finally in a league were the kids got to pitch to each other, but we were still only using ten inch balls. All the years after that I was finally in real fast pitch softball team. That was the year I started using 12 inch balls. I fell in love with softball right away. My parents tell me all the time that they saw the passion I have for the game since day one. It’s just something I got so interested in. The major thing that made it so fun was that I actually became quite good at it! I made all my traveling teams when we had to tryout. Last year I was on three teams at one time. I don’t mind giving up my whole summer to play for my team. On my traveling team, we play out of state tournaments every weekend. So when summer comes around, it’s pretty much softball all the time for me, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. This year I am on one team only. Our team is called the Horicon Bandits. Softball never really ends for me. Usually softball and baseball start more towards spring and end in a month or so, but not us. We play all year round. We have tryouts right away after our last tournament and get right back into new teams. I have already had ten practices this year. Our coach even said that he was going to try to get us into some indoor tournaments. I think it would be really cool.

The way we made a triple play was; the girl was up to bat and the fans were cheering at every pitch. The count was getting up on her. She had one ball and two strikes. On the very next pitch, the girl at bat hit a line drive right between shortstop and 2nd base, and the crowd started cheering very loudly. The 1st and 2nd base runners thought the ball had gone through to the outfield, so they took off running. What they didn’t see was me diving to catch the ball. I dove to 2nd base towards the ball, and stretched out as far as I could, caught it, flipped the ball to 2nd, and got the runner out. Then the girl, who was covering 2nd base, threw to 1st and got the runner. The runner who had advanced towards 2nd base got out as well. We had ended the game with an unbelievable play. When a fly ball is caught, the runners must return to the base they were on, before the ball can be thrown back to that base, caught and the base stepped on or they will be out.
After the play was made we felt so incredible, like we were on top of the world! It felt so good to help win the championship game for our team. Coach was so proud of us! The whole team came flying out onto the field to congratulate us. Even Coach ran out and was jumping up and down! They were so happy that we won the championship game! I think we were so excited because those kinds of plays are very rare, and you don’t see them often. I mean, even double plays are cool to see! So a triple play is even better. It was so exciting. I could see the fans jump in the air with excitement. At the end of the game they were chanting our names; they had probably never seen anything like that before. They even gave out M.V.P, Most Valuable Player awards, during the tournament after every game. M.V.P was given to the person who the other team thought was the best player or that had the most positive impact on the game. Well, it’s only supposed to go to one person. They gave out MVP award to all three of us! I mean, after all we did have to work together in order to make the play. This felt like such an amazing accomplishment to all of us. On top of the M.V.P awards, our whole team also got trophies for winning the championship game! Coach was so proud of us. Also all of our parents were proud of us. We were so proud of ourselves. Coach even took us out to dinner afterwards at the best pizza joint in Rockford Illinois.

In conclusion, now that I told you about how my softball team made a triple play, how we felt about the game and the awards we all received. I hope reading about this makes you as excited as we all were. Now that we have experienced a triple play at such a young age, I wonder what other rare plays we have to look forward to in the future and playing fast pitch softball. I guess we will have to wait and see and play our best.