Taylor McQuillin is a 16-year-old incoming junior softball player at Mission Viejo (Calif.) High and had a strong year for the Diablos hitting .416 with eight home runs.  A standout student with a 4.2 GPA, she has pitched for the OC Batbusters the last two years and had verbally committed to Oklahoma State as a freshman, but had to decommit due to medical issues with her father.  Currently, she has Pac12 offers from Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon State and Washington.

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 left side.  Here is her latest blog for Student Sports Softball… today, she talks about improving as an athlete and the drive to get better…

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As an athlete I find ways to make myself better each and every day. I ask myself “How can I improve?” or “How can I change something to benefit the team as well as myself?”

We tend to look at the negatives more than the positives because, in all reality, nobody enjoys losing. We all want to succeed at something.

Athletes want to be better than the rest of their opponents because competing is not a game of luck. It is a game of skill as well as knowledge. Mental stability and emotional toughness are keys to success because they determine the strength of a person.

You have to want to get better and want to share a bond with the players on your team. Winning also includes coming together as a team and playing as one.

Our team recently played in Colorado and the time we spent together off the field helped learn about each individual. We could see whom they were when they weren’t on the field. We could also find out who they wanted to become and their goals for their future. That helped us tremendously when the elimination brackets started.

When we were down we picked each other up. Just when other teams thought they could defeat us we showed them what we were capable of doing. That week of softball-filled days gave us the confidence to keep going.

Even though we did not finish where we wanted to, we came a long ways from where we were at the beginning of the season and we are still working towards proving to other teams that we can fight for a national title.

With the national championship tournament only a few weeks away our team is working harder than ever to place at a high ranking by the end of the season. Physically we are ready. We are strong and we are ready to fight.

As I have said before, the game of softball is a game of mental strength. The mentality of an athlete is what determines their success. You can achieve anything you put your mind to.  That is how this all works out. Nothing is possible if you don’t believe it could be.

This is the difference between the athlete and the player. Athletes are stronger than just players of the game because of what they believe they are capable of achieving. Coming up is the fight to be the next National Champions.

–Taylor McQuillin