With just under a week until the Australian Women's Baseball Championships in Altona Victoria, Queensland representatives from Townsville are already feeling like they have won.
Over the past month, they have been diligently heading to OBJs sports bar to raise money to offset their trip. The generosity from the Townsville Community has been overwhelming and it is always touching to see people rally behind women's sport.
No one was quite expecting a sports bar to be the source of the inspiration these players would need, heading in to this tournament but it has come in the form of Alice and her brother Alby two young t-ballers from the Townsville Taipans Baseball Club.
Emma Reid (Mustangs Baseball Club) and Brittney Finlayson (Taipans Baseball Club) were doing the rounds when they caught the flash of red in one of the booths.
"Selling tickets is always delicate as you never want to interrupt someone's family dinner," said Finlayson. "We kept noticing them looking over at us as we were walking around and we thought they were hoping we wouldn't interrupt them."
That was until they noticed the Taipans uniform. The family had come down just to buy tickets in the raffle. Proclaiming that they were so excited to watch the women play the family will be watching along at home. Alice was even wearing her own Taipans uniform proudly throughout the dinner.
Alice and her brother Alby helped Emma and Britt choose the winning ticket for the evening.
Emma Reid, first basewoman for the Queensland white team, said that for her it brought back memories of when she just started playing softball, watching and learning from the Queensland and Australian players.
"Representing your state in sport is one of the highest honours, but it's more than that. Meeting Alice reminded us that this opportunity is bigger than us. We are representing our state, our region, our clubs and ourselves but most importantly, we are representing all the young players that will come after us."
Emma and Britt shared their meeting with the broader Townsville squad and there is no doubt that it sent ripples through the entire playing group. "I think she may have inspired us more than we inspired her!" Said Reid.
The Australian Women's Baseball Championships are scheduled to kick off from 2-8 April with some matches being live broadcast, while the local T-ball league has to wait a little longer with their first games scheduled to take place after the Easter school holidays.
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