Yellowjackets

Ryleigh is playing softball this season. It has been a tough season for their little team. The fall season is always a little tough for regular players because club teams are allowed to come in an play as a team and coaches that recruit teams before the season can then sign up as a team. Since we were not a part of either Ryleigh just got assigned to a team of girls. The girls on the team are great but they have never worked as a team together and it shows. Unfortunately they have lost every game so far (and Thursday is the last game) but it seems that they are all still having fun playing.

 This season Ryleigh has taken to catching. She says that she loves it, and that makes me happy. Originally their team had a girl that wanted to be the catcher, and she was excellent at it, but after they lost their first game she quit the team. So Ryleigh stepped up to the plate (literally) and has stepped in to be the catcher, and she does a great job. I am proud of her.

 But... I think her love is first base. She is great at first base and this season it has been a real workout because most of the throws that come her way are not a straight shot to her, and she is having to run, jump and dive for it.

 She is a great hitter! She loves to bat and she is pretty aggressive at it. In fact at her last game she hit a GRAND SLAM! yep! That's right. The bases were loaded and she smacked that ball all the way to the fence! I was a proud mama!

 The fun part of this season is that Ashley & Jayda (cousins) are playing too! We are 1/3 of the team! haha! The girls are so cute to watch play together.  This is their first year playing and both of them have really made such huge improvements. Jayda has actually started pitching and she is good! She is probably the best pitcher on our team. She really loves softball, I think, and will probably go on to play in the spring. Ashley is so fun to watch. She runs like Bambi (in fact that is our little nickname for her) and she is ALWAYS smiling. She is so cute. Ashley's first love is cheer leading, and it shows. I don't think she will be able to continue with softball because it will conflict with cheer, but it has been fun to watch her anyways.

Since Ashley has this amazing gift of height (she might be taller than me - if not , she is as tall as me) and so she can almost ALWAYS draw a walk. We can always count on her to be the base runner we need.

 At our last game Jayda was pitching and she got smacked in the face with the ball - and lets just say it was a bloody mess. She very calmly covered her face and walked off the field and her dad and the coach got her some ice and stopped the bleeding. We had to stop the game for about 5 minutes to help her out but since our team is missing a player we couldn't continue without her. So as soon as she stopped bleeding....

 She walked back out there and pitched the rest of the inning, and she did an amazing job! I think she struck the rest of the batters out!

So Ryleigh is going to try out for her Junior High Softball team next week, and I will keep you posted on how that goes.