As the bell rang, I rushed to the bathroom to put on my softball uniform. It was my first game of my high school career, so of course I wanted to be on time. I got to the field, and everyone seemed to be thrilled that it was our first game of the year. As the sun went down and the lights came on, I could see that my teammates didn’t have that upbeat, confident mentality anymore. After the long seven innings, we had been defeated. Unfortunately, this is how most of our games went. Through that same cycle and all had the same result: Losing.
          There was something missing in our team, but we couldn’t figure it out. We had practices that we went over the game mentally and discussed what we could do better the next game. Our coach approached the problem like any other coach would, with fundamentals. Even after a few more games, with wins and losses, there was still something missing from our team.
          A few weeks later, towards the middle of the season, we had an early morning game on Saturday. The night before, we had practice, and had a team event at Coach Heather's house. We all piled in the cars of the players who were old enough to drive and head over to Heather’s house. We walked in the townhouse to the aroma of sauteed vegetables and buttery golden noodles. Everyone rushed to the kitchen like a herd of cattle. After we all had settled back down in the living room and finished dinner, a lightbulb went off in someone’s head to play a game of football. Again, it was like a herd of cattle with everybody competitively pushing and shoving each other to get ahold of that football. After a few bumps and bruises, the sun started to go down and the game ended. Soon girls began occasionally slipping out of the door.
          BRAYNK, BRAYNK, BRAYNK!!  Eight o'clock the next morning, I wake up with a energetic attitude and  I hop into my uniform. I brush my teeth (of course), braid my hair, put the bow in my hair, and add the thick line of eye black to my cheeks. You know, all the game day essentials. I arrived at the field to find that everyone had the exact same attitude as I had when I first woke up. In that moment I could see that the old saying my mom always told me “Attitudes are contagious” was true. Everyone could see our energy when we were playing, especially the other team. It was now the bottom of the fifth inning, and we were crushing this team. All we needed was one more point to run rule this team. I was the lead off batter for this inning. As I am walking up to the batter's box, Coach McCoy stops me and whispers in my ear “Just hit one over so we can end this game.” “Okay. I mean I’ll try” I replied.
          Each step closer to the plate, I can’t help but think about what he told me. With one foot in the box, I tap the front edge of the house shaped plate, and put my other foot in the box. I see the pitcher grip the seams and start her windup. It was like the ball came at me in slow motion. I start my swing with my stride, then my hips, my hands, and the bat follow. The ball bounced off the bat and it felt as if my swing was effortless. I rounded first base and noticed that none of the defense was reacting. They were just staring at me like I had an extra head. Then I realized that the reason they weren’t reacting is because my ball had gone over the fence. I trotted around the remaining base path and watched my team cheering as they came out of the dug out to meet me at home plate. Finally, the game was over and we came out with a huge victory.
          On down the road of ups and downs, we were competing in the regional tournament. What? Yes, that little rinky dink Montgomery County team that nobody thought could make it past the first round of district tournament. Before we played that week, it was one of our team leaders’ birthday. So of course we had celebrate. We had practice and then all of us piled up in the cars of the girls who could drive and raced to Abi’s house to surprise her. We played water kickball. It is kickball, but the bases are kiddy pools filled with water, and the base paths are tarps with water and soap on it. While I waited for my turn to kick, I looked around and saw everybody laughing, smiling, and just enjoying everyone's’ company. It was then I felt like we had came a far way since the beginning of the season. We all had made relationships with each other and became a lot closer than before.

          As the upcoming season is fastly approaching, my team is already scheduling team bonding events. Looking back now, we can use what we learned from the rough start of last year to fill in gaps. By gaps I mean the gaps of the unsure freshmen and new players that don’t know their teammates and coaches. As Alexander the Great once said "Remember: upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all."