Jessie's new softball team...

Group photo with the Japanese girls!

Mason, Jessie, and Veronica at Yakaniku Viking, yummy!

Back in October, Matt and I started helping with this "elite" softball team. Basically it's an off season team for the high school girls, but with no affiliation with the high school. The original coach had to back out because an upcoming, unforseen deployment. Of course Matt and I stepped in to take the team. We've been running clinic style practices for about a month or so. The team, which includes three girls from our old league in San Diego (what a small world), has been working hard and improving every week. Today we played our first game against a local Japanese high school. At the end of 7 innings we were up a few runs. But in the end we lost it, as we tried to play 9 innings just for fun. Our fun meter pegged out at the end of the 6th inning! Jessie pitched 6 of the 9 innings. She really turned some heads today. She was throwing some serious heat. She's throwing low 50's high 40's now with an occasional 55mph in there.The Japanese director was stunned, especially with her age! Hopefully, someone will see her play and offer her somewhere else to play later. Our high school won't let her play in their regular season because of her age and the fact that she's still in elementary school. We are very proud of her! She just loves to play!