“I play (high school softball) to keep me ready for travel ball when the summer starts and I play for my high school team to work our way to a championship ring,” says Taylor McQuillin, the talented pitcher and No. 5 rated prospect in the 2015 class.

The Southern California standout has committed to the Univ. of Arizona and plays for one of the premier club teams in the nation, the OC Batbusters-Haning.  She is also a standout student with a 4.2 GPA at Mission Viejo (Calif.) High School where she earned 1^st team All-Orange County honors in 2013.

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.

Here is her latest blog for Student Sports Softball in which she talks about transitioning from club to high school softball and the benefits of playing for her school.

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

 

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Now that we’re past the holidays and moving towards spring, I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about the transition from travel ball to high school softball.

A lot of people have different views on high school softball because each high school has a different level at which their team competes. Over the past three years of me being in high school, I have learned that some people dread the start of high school season.

However, in my opinion, I could not be more excited for it to start.

I enjoy creating a bond with another team and having a chance to play for a high school CIF championship ring. To me, high school softball is fun and even though the competition that we face is not as great as it is in travel ball, there is very good competition as we get to the end of the season.

That’s why I play high school softball—I play to keep me ready for travel ball when  the summer starts and I play for my high school team to work our way to a championship ring.

At Mission Viejo, my team that comes ready to play and always fights to the end. We play to win and we are never satisfied with just playing average. We always work to get better each and every day.

My high school team has 10 players who have Div. 1 college scholarships and I could not be any more proud than I am of each and every girl who has received one. They all deserve them. We still have girls that are also being recruited as well and I know that they will go to amazing schools as well.

I can honestly say I have one of the close-knit high school softball teams out there and I always know that each one of the girls will be there for me no matter what and not many people have that in high school.

On our team, we use all of the games before the playoffs as ways to grow and fix the small things. We also use it as a way to makes changes necessary to prepare for CIF because once the playoffs come we are out to win it all. We always play to win but CIF is really important to us because we all have the heart to play and the desire to win.

For me, high school softball is more than just softball. High school softball at Mission Viejo is family. We all come together as a team and play as one.

The transition from travel ball to high school is different for everyone so I can only speak for myself and my experiences with this topic. I do start to miss travel ball by the end of high school season but we are allowed to practice with our travel teams on the weekend so it always has its benefits as well.

I am excited to start the high school season again and can’t wait to see what this year has in store for all of us.

— Taylor McQuillin