Fastpitch Fan Fare Friday – Bremen Middle School

It’s Fastpitch Fan Fare Friday! Which means its time to share the Fastpitch Fan Fare Team of the Week.

This week, we travel all the way to a little town nestled deep in West Georgia called Bremen, and pay some homage to a group of hardworking girls from Bremen Middle School.

As most of you know, school teams can be tricky. Unlike regular season teams, school ball teams ‘can’ often involve quite a bit of drama – mostly because the players not just know one another at school, but also because they come from all different levels of play and travel teams. You have some girls that play for A-Level teams and others playing hard in lower B, or even C levels of play. At the Middle School age, this can be a recipe for disaster – that pits player against player and can sometimes even eat away at the morale on the sidelines.

But for this group of girls it wasn’t like this at all. From the onset of the season, they knew they had work to do, clear goals in mind and they rose to the task, practicing daily throughout the season under the supportive and focused coaching of Jordyn Robinson and Stephanie Cook.

In fact, the 8th grade team captains, Abby Akins, Haley Cook and Ragan Folds, served as supportive and positive mentors to the younger 6th and 7th graders on the team, and immediately accepted every girl on the team as if they had been playing together for years. During practices and warm-ups before games – the girls all worked together, practiced hard – and combined their performance on the field with a great amount of laughter, positive thinking and character.

During games, the dugout rang with the tunes of constant support and encouragement for one another. Even better, it truly appeared from the sidelines that they were having a blast learning and playing the game they all love – TOGETHER!

With the start of school in August and the onset of the team shortly after the girls and coaches had less than two weeks to get their team prepared and start competing in games. And compete they did.

In each and every game, the girls from Bremen Middle School took the field, led by a stellar pitching roster that every coach would dream of having, which included, 8th grader Haley Cook, and 7th graders Kristen Green and Ashlinn Garner – the girls as a team were able to pitch, hit, slide, run and play defense in a manner that secured them an UNDEFEATED regular season.

When Head Coach Jordyn Robinson was asked what she would have to say about her team, she said

“I was so proud of the effort from all 15 players day in and day out. The team dynamics and camaraderie among the players was remarkable. Each and every player had an important role and were always encouraging their teammates. The group of girls began this journey in August and learned so much throughout the season and as the year concluded.”

I could not definite the word TEAM with anything better than these girls.”

At the end of the season, these girls lost in their region championship game, but not without a fight till the very last inning, in what was a nail biter of a game. This group of girls fought hard each and every inning with both talent and character. All involved, from the players and parents to Coach Robinson and Coach Cook would have to agree that these girls were WINNERS all the way!

When it comes to attitude, hard work, perseverance, persistence, dedication, skill, talent, team work and character (ALL the ingredients of an amazing team) – this team of Middle Schoolers was a force to be reckoned with and made their small community proud with their BIG BLUE effort.