It's a Sunday afternoon on an 80-degree day in Evanston and we are tight in the huddle listening to Coach Kate give the postgame talk. We just finished a 6-3 win over Illinois and she asks us how we are feeling. The answer is clear on our smiling faces. "Human beings feel good when they know they worked hard," is the message she gave us and described exactly what we all were feeling.
If I am being honest, the game has thrown every challenge possible at us this season and knocked us on our knees at times, but we refuse to stop rising and working harder as a team because of it. We may be 36 games deep into the season but I truly believe the best is yet to come for us. Let me give you one of the reasons why I say that:
Morgan Newport, who is writing the end of her softball career in a monumental way, continues to fill our team with the hope that we are never out of the game as long as we have one out left. Once again the game brought her the moment of being up to bat in the seventh inning with two outs and down by one run and you could see the similar thoughts we were having in the dugout that we did when she walked it off vs OSU. We CHOSE US and had no doubt in our minds in that moment weeks ago for her first walk-off back when the games felt like they always went our way.
Our team is special because we continue to CHOOSE US even after we've come up short since then. For us it doesn't matter what the score was in the previous game or how we finished the prior series; we still believe in ourselves. That unwavering confidence we have as teammates is what brought us back to holding our breath in the dugout as Newport stood at the plate, believing the game was still ours. That special feeling we all share when the game is on the line is what brought us to running to the plate screaming for Newport as she rounded third for her second walk-off this season.
Our hard work is yet to be finished ... and the best is yet to come.
Sincerely,
Sydney #26
If I am being honest, the game has thrown every challenge possible at us this season and knocked us on our knees at times, but we refuse to stop rising and working harder as a team because of it. We may be 36 games deep into the season but I truly believe the best is yet to come for us. Let me give you one of the reasons why I say that:
Morgan Newport, who is writing the end of her softball career in a monumental way, continues to fill our team with the hope that we are never out of the game as long as we have one out left. Once again the game brought her the moment of being up to bat in the seventh inning with two outs and down by one run and you could see the similar thoughts we were having in the dugout that we did when she walked it off vs OSU. We CHOSE US and had no doubt in our minds in that moment weeks ago for her first walk-off back when the games felt like they always went our way.
Our team is special because we continue to CHOOSE US even after we've come up short since then. For us it doesn't matter what the score was in the previous game or how we finished the prior series; we still believe in ourselves. That unwavering confidence we have as teammates is what brought us back to holding our breath in the dugout as Newport stood at the plate, believing the game was still ours. That special feeling we all share when the game is on the line is what brought us to running to the plate screaming for Newport as she rounded third for her second walk-off this season.
Our hard work is yet to be finished ... and the best is yet to come.
Sincerely,
Sydney #26