It is the dream of so many athletes to be picked to represent their country in the sport they love. For Poland's Erin Gabriel, that dream is now a reality.
"It's just an amazing feeling because of all the hard work and preperation I put in," Gabriel said. "I dreamed as a little girl to be playing softball and having USA on my chest."
Gabriel was one of 17 players selected out of 41 of the country's best prep softball talents for the USA Softball Junior Women's National Team and will get to travel to multiple spots on the globe to do what she loves. The first tournament will be the III Pan American Softball Championship, which will take place Aug. 6-15 in Bogota, Colombia. That tournament serves as a qualifier for the International Softball Federation IX Jr. Women's World Championship, which will take place on Dec. 6-17, 2011, in Cape Town, South Africa.
"I want to go experience different cultures and travel a lot," Gabriel said. "So the oppurtunity is amazing - I can't ask for more."
For Gabriel's coach at Division III state runner-up Poland, Reid Lamport, he was almost as excited for Gabriel's oppurtunity to shine on the international level as she was.
"It's awesome," Lamport said.
"It's a goal of every coach to see his players compete at the very highest level. And obviously, this is as high as anyone can compete in, so I have a lot of satisfaction. She went out in California and, frankly, there aren't a lot of 16-year olds out there. So to do what she did, it takes a lot of talent and mindset and confidence that a lot of girls don't possess."
Gabriel will be joining 16 other elite talents, with over half of the other players either from or connected to California. 11 players come from the Sunshine State, with five players coming from the elite California Worth Firecrackers 18-Under Gold program. Overall, seven states were represented on the team of 17, which will be coached by Karen Johns, an assistant coach at Mississippi State.
For Gabriel, who joins Maryland's Kourtney Salvarola as the only two players from the Northeastern half of the United States, she sees the West dominated roster as a chance to show the world what the Buckeye State can do.
"It feels really great to prepresent Ohio," Gabriel said. "I knew there were going to be a lot of warm weather girls because they got to play all year-round. But I'm going to try show the world that Ohio can play softball, too."
