Vanessa Currie: Finally Show Time

“Success happens when preparation meets opportunity.” -Henry Hartman

Entering my Junior season full of excitement, kickoff nerves and high expectations for both myself and the team I would love to share the inside scoop to softball with fans, friends, family and fellow student athletes! After the most mentally draining fall, with our roster dwindling down from 21 to 15 I couldn’t be happier to finally start season with the most dedicated girls who stuck out the heavy conditioning, weights and long practice hours to prepare for go time.

With initial nervous feelings all through fall about this spring season and going in with the mind set that it was going to be somewhat of a “re-building year” because of all the new teammates we had acquired, our first games against Academy of Art proved to me otherwise. This year we have 6 freshman and 2 transfers, with 7 out of the 8 battling it out for starting positions at second, shortstop and third base. They all knew that they had such big shoes to fill since we graduated some of the CCAA’s best infielders and hitters last year, and already I am so proud of them for stepping up and taking on such big roles so early in their collegiate years.

Saturday pre-game started off emotional as we dedicated the game to the recent passing of Jim Ledford, the father of former second baseman Kayla Ledford, for he was a number one fan and so much a part of our Seawolf softball family. I also shared a few words on the behalf of my friend and former high school teammate Bree Williams who was a top incoming pitcher this year for Academy of Art, but who’s life was taken this past summer only weeks before she was about to start her first collegiate season. Although I started to choke up as my little speech about the two of them came to an end, I remembered that game time was minutes away, and by thinking that today my teammates and I were going to play our best for Jim & Bree put me back into my competitive mode. I couldn’t have been happier with the teams all around performance as we kept our energy, pitching, defense and offense up throughout the doubleheader and came back from behind in both games. I am also very happy with the fact that we scored in multiple different innings, since that is a big goal of ours this year in order to score consistently throughout the game instead of get ahead and flatline or not get any runs on the board until the last innings. After kicking off the season as a 2-0 team, we celebrated at our 2nd annual Karaoke Night fundraiser in the Commons and it was a great time! Parents, family, athletic staff, friends, alumni and our signed recruits for next year along with their parents partook in the singing, games, raffles, silent auctions, food and drinks to complete the successful Saturday.

This weekend we take our first trip to the Desert Stinger tournament held in famous Las Vegas, Nevada! This will be a good test for us as we compete against and scout 28 other top contending DII schools from all over the U.S, who’s same goal is to be the 2012 National Champions. Please follow us online and wish us luck throughout our next 5 games this weekend, thank you!