May 6th 2017. A day that was just an ordinary day when it started out. A day that doesn’t mean anything to most people -- But to me it meant the world. I woke up that morning in a haze. I was still tired and sore from practice the day earlier. I woke up to the sound of my mother yelling down the hall for me to get up otherwise I would be late.

“Breanna Lynn! You better be getting up and dressed by the time I come back there!” My mother exclaimed.
“Yeah mom, I know. Where did you put my good black socks?” I asked her.
“They were washed last night Breanna why don’t you start keeping track of your things.” She abruptly argued back.

Before I know it, it is 6:20 am on a saturday morning. As I am trying to get up and get dressed all I can hear is the sound of my mother’s irritated and exhausted voice complaining about how irresponsible I am and she shouldn't have to keep track of my stuff. Now the only thing I can think of is how I am going to be late getting to school. I still had to get dressed, move my equipment into the right car, and grab enough water to last me for the first game.

“Okay mom, I think I'm going to head to school now. I moved my bag out of your car. Can you tell anthony goodluck for me?” I asked softly since I was feeling bad about making her more agitated early in the morning than she needed to.
“Yes I will tell him, good luck today. Play hard. Make sure you eat and drink enough before your games. Dad will be there around 8.” she told me.
Since my brother had his own baseball tournament that day, and I had mine we wouldn’t get a chance to see each other. The time is now 6:45 and all I can think of making sure I get to school at 7:05 so we can gather our equipment and go. As I grab my keys and start driving to school, a couple things cross my mind.
“What game is she going to pitch me? Where is it again? What team do we play?” these were the questions and thoughts that were coming to my mind, along with a million others.
As I drove into the school parking lot, I parked my car, got out and unloaded my gear.
“Hey bre! What’s up?” I heard someone say behind me. As I turn around to look who
called my name, I see it was Madison. She was carrying her bag from her car down to the bus.
“What’s up kid, You ready to go?” I asked her back.
As we waited, players from our team started showing up one by one. We had to be at school promptly at 7:05, our coach had told us yesterday at practice.

After waiting outside for the rest of the team to show up, our coach told us to gather all equipment and load it on the bus. After about five minutes of getting all bags, tees, balls, and bow nets onto the bus, every player took her seat. As I got onto our bus I noticed how we had way too much stuff. I remember thinking to myself, “what are we going to do with all of this. We have five bow nets, four buckets of balls and a million softball bags.” I decided to sit down next to Madison. Our bus was crammed. We didn’t have room for all of the bags, which made it hard for all the players to get a decent seat. It was still early in the morning so when I sat down I decided to throw my headphones in and turn on my music so I could think about the day. I like to do this a lot actually. Before games it helped me to put my earbuds in and close my eyes to practically envision the game. I needed to be in a deep state of concentration. As the bus took off from school, driving us to Cudahy High, my coach stood up and started letting us know the plan for when we arrived.

“Okay everyone when we get there, we will be on the far left back field. We need to unload the whole bus so grab a bag and some equipment and we will sort through it when we get off. I'm going to read the lineup and positions so we all know what we have to do since we are running a little late.” Our coach said to us.
In my head Im thinking I will be pitching the first or third game. Since we have three pitchers on the team, including Abby, E, and myself, she might want to start me against a more difficult team.” I was thinking to myself.

As she begins to read off our line up, I listen closely “Ashley batting first and catching, Biz batting second and playing second, Mily batting third playing first, Danes batting fourth playing third, Taylor batting fifth playing shortstop.” This continues to go on until she gets down to Brook, our tenth hitter in the lineup but she is sitting the bench along with Chloe, Madison, Samire and myself. I was confused at first. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t starting this game. We only had two games for sure today, the third one was only if we made it into the championship game. I waited for her to continue talking about how we are going to set up our stuff, and when she was done I placed my earbuds back in. I laid my eyes on the window next to me, and tried to imagine how today was going to go. Abruptly I felt a jerking stop, and everyone on the bus went flying forward.

“This is your stop!” the bus driver yelled out as if she was annoyed by us, or all of our stuff we had lying around her bus. Whatever the reason was, we started to walk off the bus one by one, each of us grabbing a piece of equipment and someone's bag. We had to start getting stretched and warming up since we were already a good ten minutes behind.

I grabbed Chloe, my glove and a ball and we headed out with our team to right field to begin throwing. We passed the ball ten times between us before we decided we were warmed up. I told Chloe I had to go hit with Aly since she was going to warm me up. Even though I wasn’t going to be pitching that game, my coach always suggested that we all warm up, because if someone is having an off day, the next girl goes in. Aly and I bustle through the hitting stations quickly so I have enough time to warm up every pitch of mine.

As I waited for Aly to put her catchers gear on, I was rummaging through a bucket of balls when my coach approached me.

“Bre, so here’s what I was thinking for the day, E is going to start this first game against south milwaukee, Abby will start the second game, and you will start the third.” she told me.

As she walked away before I could speak a word, or even make a sound I was astonished. Maybe I couldn't get any words out because I was too shocked to say anything. I didn’t know what to think. My emotions were all over the place. I wanted to go up and ask if she knew we may not have a third game today. Nothing was a guarantee. Why was I possibly not getting any sort of a chance today? My emotions started to fill up inside of me to the point where I needed to scream and yell to get it out.

Since Aly was my catcher, I decided to go and tell her the game plan for the day. As I was telling her, she had the same reaction I did. We both were confused and mad.

Half way through our warm ups, we hear the umpire walk over to call coaches and captains. Coach Rec along with E and Ashley walk up to the plate for the meeting. Aly and I finish our warm ups, and head over to the dugout where the rest of the team is, waiting to find out if we are home or away. Coach Rec, E and Ashley make their way back to the dugout and let us know that we are away. The first three batters get their gloves and helmets on and grab their bats. We put four up on the board that inning, and none the rest of the game. South milwaukee only scored one that game, in the last inning, but we came out on top.

The next game we played Brookfield East, which was an easy win. We ended up coming on top 15-2 that game. My coach came over and told all of us that we would be playing in the championship game at 3pm against Cudahy.

I went over to my dad, grandpa and grandma, my boyfriend Jacob, and auntie. I told them I was going to be pitching this next game. They all told me goodluck, and to be smart. Jacob and I went for a walk and put a blanket down to sit on. I began telling him how upset I was earlier today, and it seems like I'll never get any chances to prove anything. I was nervous for this game, what if I messed up? He started to reassure me and tell me how everything would be okay, I just had to calm down and think.

At 2:30 my coach told us we had to start warming up. I pulled Aly off to the side and we started pitching. I told her I really wanted to focus on my change up and rise ball during warm ups and the game. When 3:00 came around the umpires once again called for coaches and captains. This time it was Aly and I went up for the meeting. But we were away again. Our team rallied two runs in the first half inning, then it was finally our turn to go out and play defense.

The first inning went by very quickly, in a matter of three minutes we were already back in to hit. I threw two strikeouts that first inning. When I walked back into the dugout I was feeling pretty good about that inning. Our second at bat, we did not do much, we left runners on bases and our coaches weren’t too happy about that. I knew I had to make up for it somehow, so defense was going to have to help me out here. On the mound I liked to try and stay as calm as possible, even though that is not always attainable. I took my three warm up pitches like usual and waited as their first batter that inning walked up to the plate. As she stepped into the box I thought about how familiar this girl looked, I’ve sworn I have seen her or played against her before. Then it hit me. I remembered I play against her almost every summer in our travel team tournaments. I knew exactly what to throw her. High inside rise ball. As she swung it was like a shock went through my body to stop me from moving, I was frozen. As I watched her miss the ball, I took a deep breath of relief. Strike one. Trusting my instincts, I decided to throw her a change up. Although this pitch was not known to be my absolute best, I figured I could get her to chase it--and so she did. Strike two. Aly called a high and outside rise ball. I nodded my head yes and there went my arm, whipping around my body so fast it had never felt that fast before. Called looking. Strike three.

Five innings went by, and as they kept on progressing, my coach and teammates attitudes and actions began to change. They didn’t go from good to bad or vice versa. They went from happy and cheerful too excited and amused. In the bottom of the fifth inning I had no idea what they were all getting so jittery about. They started whispering softly to each other and giving me short quick glances. It started out with my coach, when she approached Hattie, the girl keeping score for us. My coach asked her how many strikeouts I have had so far in the five innings. Hattie told her “13 she is at. 13.” I was puzzled and confused. Why did she want to know that? I pondered in my head. I went back out for the sixth inning, and within the three outs we had to make, I threw a strikeout as one of them. When I did, the rest of my team sitting on the bench started to get louder and louder. Strike by strike each time I threw the ball, they would cheer and scream as loud as they could.

“This is sort of weird. I get it they are excited because we are winning but I don't understand why they keep getting so excited after every pitch I throw. I mean I am happy too when I strike someone out but this was different. I have never had a team react this way to my pitches.” I thought curiously in my mind.

Walking into the last inning I had not realized what everyone was up to, but I knew something was different. Everyone on my team from coaches to players was in on something that I was not aware of. As my curiosity grew, I decided to ignore it for these last three outs. We were winning seven to five and I knew I wasn’t going to let this game slip.

“Just breathe and stay calm. You only need to pitch three more outs, and that's the game.” I tried to reassure myself.

As the umpire calls for the batter to step into the plate, my heart begins to race, to beat a thousand times per second, and all I do is put the ball into my glove, look at Aly and smile. The batter steps into the box and I do what I do best. Before you knew it, the umpire was calling “Strike three. You're out!” as loud as he could. I smiled and looked over at the bench through my black dusty face mask. They were exotic, going crazy. They were jumping up and yelling my name. At this point in time I was still very unsure about what was happening. When the next batter steps into the box, I throw her a drop ball and she hits a grounder to our shortstop, Taylor.

“That’s two. One more to go.” I calmly repeated over and over again to myself.

Aly calls for a change up on the first pitch. Feeling uneasy about it, I decide to go along with it because sometimes our catchers know us and our pitches better than we do. “Strike one” I hear the umpire say. As I decide to throw a fast ball low and inside for my next pitch, I hear him repeat “Strike two.” When I place my ball into my glove for the last time, I take a deep breath and look at Aly, then look over at the bench with a smile from ear to ear. As I wound up for my last pitch, I released it high and inside, just enough for the umpire to call the last pitch of the game for a Strike three looking. I was ecstatic. I hit my hand against the side of my glove, ripped my face mask off, and had a smile so big that nobody could have ever taken it away. There was only one thing missing. I didn’t know what everyone else was so happy about, other than the fact that we had just beat Cudahy at their own tournament, and took first place in our championship game. As we started to line up to shake hands with the other team, and receive our metals, my coach looks at me and smiles. She had our game ball and score book in her hands.

“Bre, kid. Do you know what you’ve just done?” she asks me.
“Um no, but is that what’s going on?” I asked back in a confused state.
Coach Rec hands the ball over to Aly, and she approached me with it with tears in her eyes and a soft, gentle smile on her face. She hands the ball out to me, and I take it.
“Guys what's going on? I'm still really confused.” I questioned my team surrounding me since they all knew what had just happened.
“You just broke the schools strikeout record. It set set at 13 and you just threw 15 this game.” Aly said to me with a great deal of excitement in her voice.

It took me a minute to process and realize what she had just told me. But it all made sense now. Hattie was keeping score for us, and Rec told her when I was at 13 that I was on the verge of breaking it. When the word spread to other girls on the team, they all vowed to keep it from me because they didn’t want to jinx me. My heart felt like it was ready to explode by the amount of happiness I was feeling at that moment in time. I didn’t know what to say or to feel. I just knew I had to thank Aly and my team for being so supportive and having trust in me.

At the end of the day when we all packed up our things and started the journey home, I sat down on the bus once again, glaring outside my window realizing all the extraordinary things we can all accomplish if we just believe in ourselves.