Six softball players from Prince George landed in Atlanta Wednesday evening and quickly jumped into ground transportation.
As part of the Canada Futures team of 36 girls, they had a two-hour drive ahead of them to get to the town of Cochran, Ga., for a practice later that night.
Today, they'll hit the diamond for a doubleheader against Middle Georgia State College, the first in a week-long eight-game exhibition tour against junior college opponents in Georgia and Alabama.
For the P.G. players involved - 13-year-olds Katie Kilburn and Caley Leslie; 14-year-olds Brooke Behiel and Shelby Betker; 15-year-old Jordyn Deans; and 16-year-old Drew Pederson - it's the trip of a lifetime.
Canada Futures head coach Joni Frei, 33, grew up in Kelowna, where it was difficult for her to find players equal in calibre, so to further her career she moved to Vancouver for her last two years of high school. That led to a scholarship at Georgia College State University, where she also coached, and a playing/coaching stint in Holland. Some of her colleagues in Georgia now head college teams the Futures team will be playing this week.
"There's a lot of raw talent and ability in the Prince George girls - they work hard and they want to get better and they're super-coachable, they're sponges," said Frei. "I made a point of taking more kids from outside the Lower Mainland. My goal is to give kids who maybe don't have the opportunities in their own clubs or associations those opportunities. It lets kids from Prince George, Kelowna, Vancouver and the Island play together, which they normally wouldn't do."
The team, which also includes Futures pitching coach and Prince George native Danielle Damel, will visit NCAA Division 1 campuses at Alabama State and Auburn University (which finished in the top eight this past season), where they will meet the players and tour their facilities.
"A lot of them become Facebook friends - they build relationships with college athletes and that's what it's all about, these kids just being mentored," said Frei.
Not only will their softball experience be unique, but Frei says the girls are also in for a memorable cultural experience when they get a taste of American life of the deep south.
"They come back saying y'all, liking sweet tea and eating biscuits and gravy - Alabama and Georgia are special states, they're not like Washington or Oregon or Montana," Frei said.
Frei, director of coaching for Softball BC, operates the Beyond the White Lines softball training academy, which came to Prince George in July for a one-day clinic and was well-attended.
The Futures program is open to players aged 13-18 from all over Western Canada. Frei started it in 2012 to provide players from remote locations in B.C. and other western provinces a chance to play at a high level against college players aged 18-20 and help players at the elite level get noticed by American colleges.
Last year, Ceara Barkowsky of Prince George was part of the Canada Futures U.S. tour, which led her to a full-ride scholarship at Grace University in Omaha, Neb. With Barkowsky off to play university softball, that shows other girls from northern B.C. it can happen to them.
"I played with Ceara this year at provincials (on the Prince George midget Thunderbirds), and for her to make it this far, and she did Canada Futures, that totally inspired me to work my butt off," said Pederson, a centre fielder.
While less than half of last year's Futures team members were old enough to attract scholarships, four received offers. Deans, a Grade 11 student at PGSS, wants to take her skills as a pitcher/third baseman to the college level. She knows the U.S. tour will be an eye-opener.
"I've always wanted to try to go for a scholarship and have fun while I'm doing it and it's an honour to be part of this team," said Deans, who started playing T-ball when she was six. "My goal is to go and play in the NCAA and I think this will be a great experience to just go learn things about colleges there."
Since the season ended in July, the six have been practicing their softball skills regularly at an indoor facility called The Warehouse. Deans and Pederson were midget Thunderbirds teammates, Behiel, Betker and Kilburn were on the bantam team and Leslie played her second of three years with the peewee T-birds. Although she stands five-foot-10 and looks several years older, the 13-year-old Leslie is one of the youngest players on the Futures team.
"I feel excited to have the opportunity to play college teams and get the exposure, because up here we don't get that exposure," said Leslie. "I definitely want to go to a school somewhere in the States when I get older.
"I'm a pitcher but I'm the youngest and I won't be pitching because they'd probably destroy me so I'll probably play first base or third base. I'll play wherever I can."
The Futures team was picked during tryouts in August in Kelowna and Vancouver. The Prince George contingent traveled to Vancouver on four weekends for practices to get ready for the tour.
The team will return to Canada on Oct. 7.
