North Carolina State University Athletics
Captain's Corner: Going to California
3/21/2007 12:00:00 AM | Softball
By Jen Chamberlin
RALEIGH, N.C. - Traveling with the NC State softball team is always an adventure. We are either playing in the championship game on Sunday and rushing to the airport afterwards, or going to see a place like downtown Disneyland in L.A. We always manage to make our flight, sometimes with time to spare, but most of the time sprinting to our gates because we just finished playing.
This past weekend we traveled to my home state of California. My teammate Jennifer Patterson’s is from there as well. The weather was beautiful and we all got a great taste of victories. It was an amazing feeling to look around the fields and see some of the great teams in the nation, such as Arizona, Oklahoma and Arizona State. These are all teams that we have watched play several times on TV at the Women’s College World Series.
We have been looked at as the underdogs since day one. That is the only way we all know how to play. We stepped on the field Saturday night playing the 30-1 Oklahoma Sooners knowing that they scored a lot of runs and that they did not make a lot of mistakes. Throughout the game we had the momentum, scoring in the first inning, as well as not letting a base runner on. Abbie Sims pitched a phenomenal game and we hit the ball hard throughout. We ended up beating the Sooners 7-0. Abbie pitched a no-hitter and we rounded up 10 hits to end the game. Walking off the field we all had a great feeling of accomplishment with big smiles on our faces.
As I walked up the hill to our vans, best friend Abbie by my side, we looked at each other with smiles on our faces. We talked about how our hearts were still racing and how all the pains we had in our bodies disappeared for that entire game.
We went to California this past weekend knowing we were going to play some of the best teams in the nation. We left knowing that we can not only compete with the greatest teams in the nation, but also BEAT the best teams.
Throughout the 2007 season, Wolfpack captains Jen Chamberlin, Shaina Ervin and Abbie Sims will keep fans up to speed on the latest happenings of NC State softball via the Captain’s Corner blog on GoPack.com. Stay tuned to GoPack.com for the latest news and information on Wolfpack softball.
