Taylor McQuillin, the 2015 pitcher from Mission Viejo, Calif., has had a great 2014—she won a high school national championship with the Diablos of Mission Viejo High, a club national championship with the OC Batbusters and the Gatorade National Player of the Year Award—and that was prior to the start of her senior season.

In her latest blog, Taylor talks about what the fall club season means and why it’s important.

“Fall is a time to better yourself within the game and to learn more about the game in which you play,” the Univ. of Arizona commit explains. “It is the time of the year where you need to start getting into shape and making sure you know your limits and improve on your biggest weaknesses.”

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. 5 rated prospect in the 2015 class (although that could change when the updated Top 10 is revealed on Halloween Day!).

Perhaps Taylor’s 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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Every weekend in my life is simply full of softball, to say the least! Even right now, during the fall when it’s considered the “off season.”

On our club team, OC Batbusters – Haning/Stith, we play what is considered to be a “double schedule” in which our team has 10-12 games each weekend instead of 5-6 when we play in showcases.

Our coach, Mike Stith, does this so our team is more than well prepared and gets plenty of reps for when summer comes around. He wants to see us play when we are fatigued and wants us to prove that we are capable of playing at a high level of competition even when we are tired.

This makes us better players and athletes because it shows how well we can perform at are weakest points. If we are still capable of beating teams when we are tired, then we will last longer than any other team.

Even with everyone on the Batbusters being committed, all of the players on our team continue to work hard because we still have to prove to the coaches that they made the right choice while recruiting us.

If you don’t continue to perform to your full potential, I believe colleges have every right to take away the scholarship you have received. This is a key component to the game, especially with girls committing so early nowadays because they need to remember that the commitment is only verbal until they actually sign.

Even after all the seniors sign, it is still important to continue to work hard because now you are working on fighting for a spot on the field and in the line-up for college, even though you aren’t even there yet.

Some important goals in the fall are to get better and work harder so you can last throughout the high school season and continue to improve throughout the summer.

Fall is a time to better yourself within the game and to learn more about the game in which you play. It is the time of the year where you need to start getting into shape and making sure you know your limits and improve on your biggest weaknesses.

Fall can sometimes be stressful; especially just coming off of summer and the few weeks off you get after nationals. School starts back up again and you have to readjust to get acclimated to not only school, but also to plug in softball back into your schedule as well.

Time management is an important key in the fall as well as being able to carry it out into the spring and the early summer as school starts to wrap up.

The holidays will come and working around those times is a little hard for all teams because you want to spend with your family and friends.

You can still go out and have fun and be the teenagers and kids that you are; just remember where softball fits in and how hard you have worked to get to the level you are at.

— Taylor McQuillin