Where do you draw the line on "owning" something?

[bucket pinata]

This^^^. For better or worse a good pitcher owns it all. The key is after the emotion has died down going over realistic stats and getting the real story. Last weekend my older DD pitched to complete games.(12 innings) 14A TB. gave up one total earned run combined on 5 total hits,three total walks,18 strike outs. Lost both games. The last game she went 5 innings without an earned run,3hits,7 errors. game tied at 5 goes into a ITB, we jump up by two.DD gets in to hold them, first batter strikes out on three pitches, second batter pops a can of corn that the right fielder misplays and its in and out of her glove, the runner on second head for home the batter rounds first and heads for second, right fielder pick up the ball and makes the throw to second get gun her out, one problem, nobody's covering second. the runner rounds second and is now on third. Next batter up strikes out. so here we go, Duck on third,2 outs, one run lead.next batter Tomahawks a full count rise ball over the fence .DDs 1 earned run. Just take a guess who takes all the reasonability for the loss. Some of her team mates were actually giving her a cold shoulder after this. When we got in the car all I could say is "well sometimes your the windshield and sometimes your the bug"We had a laugh and once the tears dried up we looked at the stats and she understood what an amazing weekend she had. It never really ceases to amaze me how amazing these young ladies can be at such a young age.

 

[NVfishing]

Players are responsible for the position they play. If your DD is doing her job and the rest of the team isn't then it's not your DD's fault. Remind her to play her best and that's the best you can hope for. My DD's HS team had a bad season. It came from all over. 20+ errors on most of the infielders. No hitting. No way to figure it out. It looked like 10U at times.

 

[Tom]

I would offer that you suggest to her that owning the experience of playing with her team be something she think about, and make that experience something she will want to keep with her for the rest of her life.

Even if she goes on to bigger and better teams in college, her memories of HS softball will not be of dropped third strikes and a team's performance in a game; but of practices, bus trips, being in the dugout with her team mates, playing games in general and the joy it brought her to play a game she loves. It sounds like she has a wonderful opportunity as a Senior to help lead a team to come together and play bigger than the sum of their parts and to achieve a goal (even if it something as small as winning a game against a particular opponent).

Sounds like she may also have a rare opportunity to help define what the schools team culture can be for years to come by leading the younger players to maximize the potential they do have (even if that potential isn't going to win them a lot of games this year) and to never give anything less than their best to their team by not playing for records, stats, wins, parents, coaches or themselves, but for each other.