Taylor McQuillin, the 2015 pitcher from Mission Viejo, Calif., helped lead the Diablos to the No. 1 ranking in the Full Count Softball FAB 50 High School Rankings in 2014 and was honored as the Gatorade Softball National Player of the Year Award last year.

The Arizona-commit and most of her team are back so it’s no surprise that the So Cal powerhouse took the top spot in our 2015 preseason FAB 50 High School Rankings which was released on Monday.

Taylor also won a club national championship with OC Batbusters – Haning/Stith last summer and in today’s blog she discusses what it’s like to take the field for her final year of high school ball.

Taylor’s hard work on the field and in the classroom, where she has a 4.0 GPA, is evidenced by her being ranked as the No. 3 rated prospect in the 2015 class, but perhaps her greatest accomplishment is she has done all this despite having to overcome birth defects making her completely blind in the left eye and with only partial hearing on the left side.

Be sure to check out Taylor’s previous blogs and those of our other standout bloggers!

Video of Taylor receiving the Gatorade National Player of the Year

Official Gatorade National POY announcement 

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This year is a new year for the high school season and that means it is a new year for our high school team to prove to everyone what we are capable of.

I know that this season will be one to remember, especially since it is my senior year of high-school.

The expectations for our team this year are set extremely high being that we won CIF last year. I think that it helps our team come together and work harder than we have worked in the past because it shows that we need to work to keep the title and we need to show that our team is capable of winning again.

The level of expectation we set for ourselves and our teammates is even higher than what everyone else expects us to do because each player knows what they are able to achieve and how well they are able to perform.

Our goals for the season are to continue to get better and push ourselves to the next level. Winning will come with the work and effort we put in and the only people that will stop us from doing the best we can do is ourselves and our team.

We will take one game at a time and play our hearts out every single game. It is really rare for high school teams to get along as well as our team does at Mission and I am so fortunate for how close all of us are.

The bond that our team had last year is also a goal to keep for this year. We lost three seniors from last year and gained three freshmen this year so we want to make sure that they fit into the bond of the team and that they feel like they belong.

It is important for our team to bond and to keep that as a goal for our season this year because a team that plays together and supports each other on and off the field is a team that is a step closer to winning.

I am honestly excited for my last high school season playing with girls that I have known since I was 10 years old. It is a true blessing to have them by my side for my final season and I know that all of us will do everything that we can to end up at the top again.

Being ranked No. 1 in the nation puts a huge target on our backs and everyone will be out to beat us. At the end of the day, our team will play with everything we have whether we are ranked 1st or not.

The pressure is on us once again and people are looking and waiting for us to fail. Our team doesn’t believe in failure. We believe in learning and growing not just as individuals, but rather, as a team.

Taylor