Alexis Mack is a 2015 grad who is at the Boulder Independence Day Tournament with her club team, the Beverly Bandits. The South Carolina-signee set the Ohio high school state single season record with 79 steals as well as the career mark with 234.

The infielder hit .682 this season with a fantastic .717 on-base percentage and reached base in 94 of her 120 plate appearances.

A soon-to-be announced FloSoftball All-American, Alexis is sharing her thoughts and experiences this week in Colorado and today recaps how the Bandits didn’t start off well on Wednesday, but it’s how you finish, not how you start, that people will remember!

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“This is a rule of racing: No race has ever been won in the first corner, but many have been lost there.”

I read this yesterday in The Art of Racing in the Rain, a book I have been reading in my downtime here in Colorado, and I found it to be very fitting for both me personally and our team’s play yesterday.

We played our first two games of Colorado yesterday, and for both my team and myself we did not play even close to our abilities.

We let one error or one mental mistake snowball into many.

Our normal high energy wasn’t there and we seemed to be playing very tight. We ended up tying our first game to a team we have already beaten twice a couple of weekends ago, and then beat the second team we played.

Although many teams may be happy with these results, as Bandits and for our team, we know we played nowhere near as well as we could and that we expect a lot more out of ourselves.

For me personally, I am a player who rarely ever gets nervous for at-bats or games, but I would be lying if I said that yesterday when we stepped on the field for that first game that I wasn’t nervous.

There is just something about the energy of Colorado and you know that you are playing in the most important tournament of the summer. That made me more nervous than I had been all summer and it showed in how I played that first game. I played tight, rushed and didn’t play my normal, relaxed and carefree game.

By the second game I felt much more settled in and was playing my normal game much more, and that brings me to how I started off my blog today.

“No race has ever been one in the first corner, but many have been lost there.”

It’s easy at this level as players to let one mental or physical mistake get in your head after it happens; however, I recognize that those mistakes I made that first game yesterday were in the first game.

How our team or I play in one game or one inning early on in a tournament or season doesn’t define the player I am or the team we are. What does define the player I am and the team we are is how we come back from those mistakes or bad games.

A lot of “races are lost in the first corner” because teams let a bad game or a couple mistakes define them. The teams that learn from their mistakes and come back the quickest are the ones that ” win the race.”

As Bandits, we understand this and although we didn’t play our best yesterday it doesn’t matter.

No one remembers who went undefeated in pool play, what they do remember is who won or placed high in the tournament.

Two years ago at PGF Nationals, our team lost every single one of our pool play games, but no one will ever remember that because we came back to win the National Championship.

Last year at PGF we got knocked into the loser’s bracket in the first round and came back to place third in the entire tournament.

Our team won’t let yesterday or any other bad games define us, but what we will let define us is how we react and come back stronger than ever after yesterday because there is a whole lot of softball left to be played at this tournament.

Yesterday, after our games, we all went to eat at Macaroni Grill. Usually, if we don’t play well, our coach won’t take us to lunch or dinner as a team, so after our first game we weren’t too sure if it was going to happen. Luckily, we played much better the second game and got to go out to eat!

After eating as a team, we all went back to the hotel to shower and we all kind of did our own thing. I love to read and try to every day so I went and read the book I quoted earlier, The Art of Racing in the Rain.”

After reading for a little, I went to hit and field with my dad at a local field. I like to stay constant with my workouts that I do at home and don’t like a miss a day even though we are at a tournament.

Although playing makes you a better player, I view games more to test your practice, rather than practice. Practice on your own is where I feel I get better and can prepare for my next ” test” or game the most.

After practicing, I came back to the hotel to read a little bit more and then hangout with some of my teammates. I don’t have many more nights left with them so I am trying to make the most of the time I have left with them.

They are some of my favorite people and never fail to make me laugh!

Thursday we play two more games and I am happy that it’s a new day for both our team and myself.

We aren’t going to let our play yesterday affect how we play today, define us as players or a team, and we certainly aren’t going to ” lose the race in the first corner.”