By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
What did you do over holiday break?
It’s doubtful that St. Joseph’s Bailey Dowling was the only Illinois teenager to travel to Florida with family over the holidays.
However, it’s a certainty that she is the only teenager from the state in that time period to secure a spot on the elite 20-player USA Junior National Softball Team.
Tryouts took place in Clearwater, Fla., starting on Dec. 28. They ended on Jan. 1.
Dowling had to endure an extra day of tryouts before the final selection process began.
“It’s pretty insane to think that being from a small town, I’ll be representing the USA and have that on my shirt,” Dowling said Thursday night, shortly after returning from the 16-hour trip by car with her father, Brett.
The latest accomplishment is just another in a long line of remarkable achievements for the high school junior.
Less than two months after her eighth-grade graduation (July 10, 2016), Bailey Dowling gave a verbal commitment to attend the University of Alabama and play softball for the Crimson Tide.
She hadn’t even spent a day in high school.
Starting seven months after her collegiate commitment, she demonstrated the accuracy of her reputation.
She blasted 22 home runs as a ninth-grader, tying for the third-best single-season total in IHSA history.
She followed that up with 21 home runs as a sophomore and needs just 18 more to break the all-time IHSA career record.
Her ability to hit the long-ball was beneficial in the recent national tryout.
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Twenty-nine players received invitations to the USA softball tryouts, which take place every other year.
More than 120 other athletes between the ages of 16 and 19 attended an open tryout on Dec. 28, hoping to join those 29 seeking spots on the Junior National Team.
Brett Dowling accompanied his daughter to the event.
“Where she separated herself is with the bat,” Brett Dowling said.
The hitting phase of the open tryout was structured so that each candidate was allotted 10 swings on a front toss from 15 feet and an additional 10 swings off live pitching from 30 feet away.
“Out of her 20 swings, she hit six over the fence,” Brett Dowling said.
Her approach?
“I pretended like it was batting practice,” Bailey Dowling said.
Unlike typical high school diamonds, where the fences are placed at 200 feet from home plate, the fences at Clearwater were set at 225 feet.
“She is a power hitter unlike any other I’ve seen at her age,” Brett Dowling said.
His opinion was supported by the results of the open tryout.
Only one of the other prospects at the open tryout hit more than two home runs. That player hit four.
There wasn’t a lot to separate Bailey Dowling from the others during the infield defensive drills, where the requirement was to field eight ground balls at third base and make a throw to first base.
“The infielders there were all super-great,” Brett Dowling said.
When the day’s workout ended, Bailey Dowling was one of 14 to be extended official invitations to try out for the USA Junior National Team.
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“The atmosphere was intense and, at the beginning, it was kind of intimidating,” Bailey Dowling said. “I was out of my comfort zone.”
She wasn’t alone.
“It was the same for everyone else,” she said.
Bailey Dowling has played summer-league ball since she was a 6-year-old.
“Most of the other 42 girls were ones I had played with or against my whole life,” Bailey Dowling said.
The hitting portion of the official tryouts was not like a typical scrimmage.
Four players batted each inning. Every fifth inning a different pitcher entered the circle.
“The whole goal was for each player to hit off of each pitcher,” Brett Dowling said. “That makes it pitcher-dominant because you didn’t have an extra at-bat to adjust.
“There were not a lot of balls put in play. They all struggled.”
The timing of the USA Trials wasn’t ideal either for athletes who had a spring season in 2018, followed by a full summer season and a limited fall schedule.
Bailey Dowling’s last tournament with her Georgia-based travel team took place in early November.
“I worked out after that, but I didn’t see a softball field or a live pitcher,” she said.
Entering the competition with the nation’s best players, she said, “I didn’t expect anything.
“I was going out to play the game, knowing it was softball and the game I love. I saw it as having fun.”
During her opportunities at the plate in the final tryout, Bailey Dowling walked once, hit two singles and clubbed one home run. She struck out four times.
Across the board, strikeouts were more the norm than the exception, Brett Dowling noting that at least one of the candidates struck out seven times.
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When the last session ended on New Year’s Day, Brett Dowling found it difficult to be optimistic.
“I was hoping,” he said, “but I didn’t know how to feel about her chances.”
Bailey Dowling shared many of the same doubts, acknowledging she didn’t perform up to her expectations.
“I’m hard on myself and criticize myself,” she said. “I saw more negatives than positives.”
There was no ceremony to introduce the USA Junior Team selections. Instead, players were notified by email.
The final roster of 20 featured 10 athletes were are currently college freshmen, eight who are current high school seniors and two who are now high school juniors.
Bailey Dowling, 16, was one of the two youngest selections for the USA team.
She and three others made the team after first surviving the day-long open tryout that preceded the official three-day tryout.
The outcome helped Bailey Dowling gain a different perspective.
“I was thinking I should have looked more at the positives,” she said. “Seeing the best (junior) pitchers in the country, you won’t make it look perfect.”
Four of the 20 on the USA Junior Team are either at Alabama or have committed to playing there.
The others besides Dowling are current freshmen Skylar Wallace (infielder) and Montana Fouts (pitcher) and current high school senior Lexie Kilfoyl (pitcher).
Two other members of the travel team Dowling now plays for — Georgia Impact — were named to the 20-player Team USA roster: Kelley Lynch (pitcher) and Julia Cottrill (catcher).
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Dowling won’t be taking much of a break from softball.
Open gyms at St. Joseph-Ogden will start on Tuesday.
“Two days a week,” Dowling said.
The open gyms will be led by the Spartans’ three captains, Dowling, Hannah Dukeman and Katie Poulter, since coaches can’t be involved.
Weather permitting, SJ-O will open its 2019 schedule on March 18 with a game at Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley which will also mark Larry Sparks’ debut as the SJ-O softball head coach.
For Dowling, there will still be plenty of softball once the prep season ends.
Team USA will have a camp, followed by a series of exhibition games, in Columbus, Ga., starting June 28.
Another camp and a series of games will be scheduled for mid-July in Spartanburg, S.C., before the 20-player roster is reduced to the 17 who will participate in the Junior Women’s World Championships that will be held in Irvine, Cal., starting in early August.
“I don’t think it has sunk in yet,” said Bailey Dowling, who last spring was chosen as the state’s Gatorade High School Softball Player of the Year.
It has hit home for plenty of others, however.
“Since the announcement, our phones have blown up,” Brett Dowling said. “We’re super-excited.”
