Recently, 12 teams in the youth softball 8 and under (8U) division competed in the North San Diego District tournament culminating the end of the All Star season. Games were played from June 14-16 in a double elimination format at Cypress Canyon Fields in Scripps Ranch. San Dieguito Youth Softball (SDYS) 8U team FORCE were crowned the champions of the North San Diego District (in the “C” division) and will be competing again June 27-30 in the Southern California State Championship.Team Head Coach Amine Ale-Ali commented below on the team’s season so far:
“Our All Star season began just over six weeks ago, with about 12 players of varying abilities. Some had been with me this past year, some started, left and came back and one player had only played for three months, but they all contributed to our season and success. We focused practices on building and developing fundamental skills such as throwing, fielding, base running and hitting.”We emphasized that if one can do the simple things well, success will come. We focused on consistency, not perfection and learning how to fail while also learning how to overcome and move on, mental training was a key component of almost all of our training especially towards the end of the season.”All girls were developed to play two positions with a goal of having girls be interchangeable by season’s end. The season was split into three phases we termed experimental, implementation and execution, the end of the season district tournament. We had very few wins the entire season, but with each week and each tournament we improved, not incrementally but by orders of magnitude. Rather than focus on winning and losing we focused on playing to the best of our abilities and playing like champions, not making excuses for losing or a ‘bad call’ but trying harder and having a good attitude and telling ourselves ‘we’ll get the next one.’”Instead of playing to individuals we focused on playing as a team and conducting ourselves in a way that s the interests of the team, in other words, putting the team’s interests ahead of our own. I never would’ve imagined seven games later, including a triple header of three straight wins [on a Sunday] that our girls would become the district champions.”The girls deserve all the credit for applying their learnings, never giving up, but, most importantly, staying focused and cheering each other on. Ninety percent of sports is mental and on that day, they all showed up and represented their namesake and our league well.”A lot of credit also goes to our league, SDYS, especially our president Steve Indian for ensuring we have access to great practice fields, training facilities and coaching that have made such an impact on girls sports both on and off the field. At the State Championship (June 27-30) in Lancaster, Calif., we will do what we always do, focus on the game in front of us with our shoulders back and our chins up.”
