Happy Campers!

So it's been kind of a quiet, busy week. Time for an overdue post about softball camp!

This is the third year we've taken our girls to the camp put on by North Idaho College. It is four days long, six hours per day. They enjoy it, and learn a lot while they're there.

This year, since she did not pitch during her ASA season, and focused instead on catching, Darcie elected not to do the Pitcher's Heat camp. This gave her a great opportunity to learn more about catching and do some of the great drills with that group. Darcie is well on her way to being an amazing catcher, in addition to quite the utility player. She is truly well-rounded as a player.

Alyssa once again worked with the pitchers, and the pitching coach, Ron Bradstreet. (He's one of the few coaches she's got that are taller than she is!) Ron has a great way of explaining and teaching pitching, so Alyssa learns a lot from him. We are planning on getting a few pitching lessons with him this winter.

This is Ron talking with Alys during one of the pitching workouts:

On the final day of camp, before the All-Star game, all the catchers came over to the pitchers' field, so the pitchers could throw to live catchers. Darcie placed herself so she could catch off Alyssa (she is the third from the right in this photo). I'm so proud of her to be holding her own amongst catchers who are older and more experienced.

This is Darcie catching during the final game. She is still a little young to be named to the All-Star team of the camp, but she played very, VERY well.

Alyssa was named to the All-Star team again (she has played on it each year she's gone to camp). This year they gave out t-shirts instead of certificates, which is great. Alyssa was also -- once again -- the starting pitcher on the All-Star team, which is a nice esteem-builder. I'm so glad I finally got a picture of her smiling at the pitcher's position:

She was also named "Pitcher of the Camp" for the second year in a row. This totally surprised her and us, because we really thought it would go to a different girl, since Alyssa was last year's "Pitcher of the Camp". Kind of a spread-the-wealth approach. Plus, the staff is pretty familiar with her, since she's on year 3 of camp. Ron readily recognizes her, and called her by name without looking at her nametag. So she was sitting there waiting for someone else's name to be called.... and then.... she graciously accepted the award and t-shirt -- I need to get a photo of her wearing it. The black t-shirt you see is the all-star team shirt.

One more photo.... when she was running the bases, she had a dive-back to third base (she was safe!) and stopped to dust-off the field dirt:

I take dozens of photos of the girls playing softball, so picking just a few for the blog is tough for me. There are many more I could share. And this pretty much concludes our softball season for this year. There is a possibility of one more tournament, which I would really like to see her play in, because it is a college exposure tournament. It will probably depend on whether her team can be gathered together for it. In the mean time, we go back to workouts in the backyard, as both girls can work their skills with each other. (Having both a pitcher and a catcher is WONDERFUL, and makes it really easy on my knees!) We love softball!