Staley plays in softball World Cup

By ROB HAMILTON

For­mer Mount Gilead res­i­dent Kristin Sta­ley had the oppor­tu­nity to play soft­ball in Europe in Jan­u­ary for the World Cup soft­ball tournament.

Held in the Nether­lands in Rot­ter­dam, the 16-team tour­na­ment started on Fri­day, Jan. 18 and con­tin­ued through the week­end. Sta­ley and her father, Brent, then went to Paris before return­ing to their cur­rent res­i­dence in Braden­ton, Fla.

The Firestix, Staley’s team, placed fourth in the tour­na­ment. While each of the six teams from the United States were com­posed of high school stu­dents, the teams from other coun­tries were under no such restrictions.

“Some girls had their kids in the stands watch­ing them because they were in their 30s,” she said. “The best part was play­ing at such a high level — they were so good — and plac­ing fourth.”

Staley’s team played one game on Fri­day before the open­ing cer­e­monies had even com­menced. They then had three games on Sat­ur­day and two more on Sun­day. Sta­ley played in every game at sec­ond base and was the lead­off hitter.

She bat­ted .425 with 11 steals and five walks drawn dur­ing the six games.

The Firestix had a 10-player team, which was suf­fi­cient for the tour­na­ment due to the shape of the indoor fields where the games took place.

“Because we had to play indoors and there were three fields, called ‘halls’, each hall doesn’t have a right field, so there’s room for stands,” she said. “There are eight girls play­ing and each team has a full line-up, and there are two pitch­ers — one to start and the other to back up.”

Staley’s team was loaded with play­ers from around the coun­try, as she noted that three play­ers were from Ohio, two were from Ken­tucky and oth­ers were from Ten­nessee, New York and Penn­syl­va­nia. Sta­ley added that she was the only player from Florida com­pet­ing in the tournament.

“We had to apply to try to get it, but to be cho­sen is awe­some!” the high school junior said. “All my teach­ers were so help­ful because it was exam week. I was either exempted from them or was able to take them before or after.”

For Sta­ley, a high­light of the tour­na­ment was the open­ing ceremonies.

“The most fun part was def­i­nitely the open­ing cer­e­monies,” she said. “There were all 16 teams there — six Amer­i­can and from 10 dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Fans were com­ing up and ask­ing us for auto­graphs, so that was really, really cool. When they played our national anthem, we all sang it in front of about 4000 peo­ple and that was so spe­cial. Just know­ing I was rep­re­sent­ing the United States in play­ing inter­na­tional soft­ball is so amazing.”

Hav­ing free time to tour the cities she was vis­it­ing also was fun for Sta­ley and her father. A high­light for her was being able to tour Anne Frank’s house, as she’d read about it, as well as watched movies and plays. She also was able to tour the Eif­fel Tower in Paris.

Sta­ley was grate­ful for the help she received in mak­ing this trip pos­si­ble. Before her fam­ily moved from Mor­row County to Florida, a num­ber of locals had helped donate and mul­ti­ple fundrais­ers had been held to help with costs.

“This would not have been pos­si­ble with­out all the peo­ple who sent dona­tions or spon­sored me,” she said. “All those peo­ple helped us and with­out that, this would not have been possible.”

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Feb 20 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.