on any given day...

With college softball back on TV this weekend, there are SO many things we are chatting with our athletes and colleagues about! There are two games that stand out to me from this weekend, and they might be overlooked by many. 

Dixie State opened their season with a 6-5 loss to Washington after leading 1-0 in the 3rd, and 5-4 in the 7th before falling 6-5 in the bottom of the 7th. Never heard of Dixie State? They JUST transitioned from DII to DI for the 2021 season and held their own against a #2 ranked, consistently top 25/WCWS bound Washington. 

UTEP opened their season with a 29-0 loss to Oklahoma. OU took a 13-0 lead in the 1st inning and never looked back. Never heard of UTEP? They are a mid-major DI team who traditionally has struggled. With a new coach as of December of 2019, and 16 underclassmen on the roster, UTEP can easily be considered the underdog here. Should Oklahoma beat UTEP? Yes. Would anyone have guessed it would be 29-0? Probably not. 

On the surface, these two games don't have much in common - 5 inning blow out, and a 7 inning nail biter. BUT they show that any team can do anything on any given day. On paper, Dixie State never should have been in the game with Washington. On paper, Oklahoma would win but wasn't expected to break a home run record and plate 29 runs. Any team can do anything on any given day. 

Whether it's a college, high school, or travel ball there are some absolutes: 
1) There are teams who work harder than others. 
2) There are teams with more talent than others. 
3) There are teams with better scouting reports, and more strategic coaches than others. 
4) There are teams with more depth than others. 

If games were won and lost based these absolutes, why would we bother playing the game at all? I often hear from lesson clients comments like "Oh, well ------ pitched. I'm not surprised our team didn't win." or "Yeah, I guess I hit well but ------- team isn't good so it doesn't matter as much we were going to win anyways." Whether you're playing a team you deem more talented than yours, or a team you feel you should easily beat - what you think really doesn't carry much weight. Any team that shows up can win/lose on any given day. There are too many factors that go into a softball game to decided who will win/lose that have nothing to do with what an athlete thinks - the weather, which players are hot that day, a timely placed error here or there, the umpire's strike zone, I could go on and on. Show up, play the game you love to the best of your ability, and let the score fall where it may!