Getting Faster

Danielle's final tournament of the softball season ended with the All Sanctioned World Series. Her team participated in this last year, too. On opening day they have a parade of teams, skills competition, and all star games. She competed in the "touch 'em all" competition again this year.

She improved her time from last year, which was her goal. Last year she finished in 11.96 seconds and was 43 out of 134 competitors. This year she finished in 11.81 seconds and was 22 out of 153 competitors. And the neat thing about that is that she's on the younger end of the age bracket this year. She beat a lot of girls that were older than her.

She worked on her speed a lot during the "off season" (is there such a thing?!), and training for track helped, but she wants to focus on that even more this winter. I think she'd like to turn a few college coaches' heads during showcases and camps over the next few years. The most important time is the time from home to 1st. At tryouts last season she was recorded under 3 seconds. When I took her out a couple weeks ago, one of her times was 2.96. At the high school and college level, anything under 3 seconds is good. Anything under 2.7 seconds is exceptional. She's at 3 seconds in jr. high. With as hard as she works, I think she has a good shot at reaching 2.7 seconds at some point in high school. Even if she doesn't, I will enjoy watching her work her hardest to be the best she can be.