Taylor McQuillin, the junior pitcher from Mission Viejo, Calif., has had an amazing year leading her Diablos team to a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) sectional title, the No. 1 team ranking in the final FAB 50 national ratings and the Gatorade Softball National Player of Year award.

But, as Taylor would quickly admit, even she’s not perfect on the field and sometimes even the best make mistakes or, in a pitcher’s case, give up a home run.

A few weeks ago at the Team NJ Summer Classic, Taylor helped lead her OC Batbusters team to the championship win but in the title game gave up a three-run home run. I asked her how do you bounce back mentally from that so today she talks about moving on after seeing an opponent circle the bases!

First, more on her background: Taylor is ranked as the No. 5 rated prospect in the 2015 class and has committed to the Univ. of Arizona. She is also an excellent student-athlete with a 3.97 GPA.

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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In the game of softball one pitch – and one swing – can be the game ending play.

Home runs happen all the time and, being a pitcher, I know what it is like to have home runs hit off of me!

One of the most important things about moving on after giving up one is knowing how to deal with them. It is important to keep pitching your game and not let the home run affect you because there is still the rest of the game to be played or still more games to come, maybe even that day.

Sometimes the pitch hit out of the ballpark is not even a bad pitch. As you get older, the competition increases and teams are harder to compete against. Hitters will learn how to hit good pitches that are out of the strike zone and sometimes pitches not even relatively near the plate.

In New Jersey two weeks ago, our team played the Carolina Elite in the championship game—a team that had hit 28 total home runs the week in the tournament.

It definitely was a reality check for our team because three of their home runs were hit off of our team!

In the end we ended up winning and it goes to show that even when a home run is given up, you can still recover from it and your team can support you with runs.

Hits and home runs will come and bad pitches and good pitches will be hit. It is not about what happens, but instead how you deal with the outcome.

Mentally you need to stay focused on the game and to continue getting batters out. Emotionally, the same thing applies. You can not let one hit get to you because you need to show the other team that it doesn’t affect you and that they aren’t getting to you.

Our team’s trips to New Jersey and Colorado in the last two weeks were extremely tiring but well enjoyed at the same time. We ended the two weeks with only one loss and are now working our way towards fighting for the PGF National Championship title.

The season is near the end, but there is still time to play and championships to be won!

— Taylor McQuillin