McKinney, TX-   Oklahoma’s Amy Graham of Hominy along with Braelyn Mitchem of Owasso. Alicia Rider of Red Oak and Brittany Swartz of Perry stepped up to help lead the Titanium Elite (a 16U Class A competitive softball team from Jenks, OK moving up to 18U) to another successful weekend performance in the NFCA Elite College Summer Showcase at McKinney, Texas.  The Team wowed many of the College Coaches and Scouts, who were in attendance all weekend, with multiple MVP Performances including Amy Graham’s Perfect Game (No Hitter) and Massive, 240-ft & 225-ft Home Runs; Alicia Rider’s breaking of the NFCA Speed Record from Home-to-Home with a time of 11.05 seconds; Brittany Swartz’ back-to-back-to-back shutout performance from the circle; and Braelyn Mitchem’s multiple game winning RBI’s.

The NFCA Elite College Summer Showcase consisted of 60 of the Top 18 and Under, Class A and 70 of the Top 18 and Under GOLD Competitive Fast-Pitch Softball teams from throughout the United States.  Teams are selected to participate based on a Pool of nearly 300 entries with the previous years attendees getting first shot and then the rest of the teams just cross their fingers and hope they get in.  The Titanium had pre-qualified based on their performances in previous College Showcases and their third place victory in the PFX Tour, Pro-Am Slam earlier this year, which also qualified them for the PFX Tour National Championship to be held at Oklahoma City’s Boomtown Ballfields in October.

The Showcase was held at three venues in McKinney, TX including the Ballfields at Craig Ranch, Wilson Creek Softball Complex and Gabe Nesbitt Park.  The Ballfields at Craig Ranch are widely regarded as one of the finest softball facilities in the nation and have played host to some of the best Amateur softball competition in the country, including the NFCA College Showcases, the USSSA World Series and even hosted a two-game series between the University of Oklahoma and Indiana University earlier this year.

The National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) is the professional growth organization for fastpitch softball coaches from all competitive levels of play.   The idea for a softball coaching association first developed from discussions at the National Collegiate Women's Softball Championships in the early 1980s. Although mostly collegiate coaches comprised the organization's membership in the early days, high school and travel ball/club coaches, umpires, as well as other fans of fastpitch softball join today’s college coaches as members. Besides services offered to the membership, the NFCA works with USA Today in producing polls for NCAA Division I and high school softball. In addition, NCAA Division II and Division III polls are produced. The NFCA also conducts collegiate tournament competitions, as well as recruiting camps throughout the nation.

The Titanium Elite is an 18 and under Class A Competitive Fast-Pitch Softball Team based in Jenks, OK. The team is coached by Head Coach & Manager Evan Crocker along with Assistant Coaches Mitch Goodwin, DeAndre Smith and Cathy Crocker and is comprised of some of the Top Amateur female Athletes from throughout the Oklahoma and the surrounding area including Tulsa, Jenks, Hominy, Enid, Red Oak, Owasso, Pond Creek and Perry .  The Titanium staff focus solely on getting their team the most College exposure possible, while trying to help their girls get scholarships to play Softball at the next level, upon graduation and have traveled all throughout the Country in search of their goal.  As most competitive teams are in the midst of wrapping up their seasons, with National Tournaments taking place over the next few weeks, the Titanium still have a minimum of four-five more College Exposures tentatively scheduled for their girls to Showcase their talents this Fall, including the NFCA Oktoberfest Showcase (Oct. 20-22 in McKinney, TX), the PFX Tour National Championship (Oct. 27-29 in Oklahoma City, OK), the Fall Showcase (Nov. 10-12 in McKinney, TX) and more to be added.

On Thursday, in the College Clinic & Showcase, Alicia “Pocket” Rider of Red Oak, OK helped the Titanium get the weekend started off with some major attention from all the College Coaches and Scouts.  In the speed drill, Home-to-Home division, Pocket rounded the bases in an amazing 11.05 seconds, setting a New NFCA Home-to-Home speed Record and breaking the previous record of 11.08 by 0.03 seconds.  When the officials confirmed the time, the crowd of College Coaches, Scouts, Players and fans immediately gave their applause and the talk of the fastest girl began.  This helped attract a lot of extra attention to the Titanium, as everyone wanted to know exactly when they played their games.

The Titanium started off the Showcase, bright and early Friday morning at 9:25 am, against the Ft. Worth Batbusters.  The Batbusters are known to be one of the strongest fast pitch organizations throughout North Texas, with four different 18 and under teams representing them at any one time and had teams competing in both the 18A and Gold Showcases during the weekend event.  Both teams started off playing hard and never gave up.  The Titanium was led by the offensive explosion of Owasso’s Braelyn Mitchem, who went 2-for-2 with two doubles and driving in two runs.  Brittany Swartz and Ashley Morris combined to pitch a stellar performance, backed up by a defensive shutdown in the 4 to 0 shutout.

The Titanium was then due a break, before their next scheduled game, of a little over three hours.  However, due to a team not showing up when scheduled the Titanium was offered an opportunity to play an additional game, immediately following the conclusion of the first victory, and graciously accepted.  So the coaches rallied their troopers together and they took the field again facing the McKinney Lady Lions.  Amy Graham, of Hominy, started off pitching and shut down the Lady Lions allowing zero hits, while striking out four and pitching a Perfect Game (No hitter) thru four innings.  Ashley Morris, of Arkansas, then came in and relieved Amy, allowing only one hit, shutting out the side and capturing the Save.  Braelyn Mitchem was again the offensive hero going 2-for-2 and driving in the sole run of the game in the Titanium’s 1-0 victory.

So this gave the ladies a three hour break until their next game against the Texas Blue Crush was due to start at 3:20.

When the team reunited at the ball fields, there was no sign of the Blue Crush.  Seeing how that was the same team that the Titanium had been asked to fill in for earlier in the day, the coaches took it on their selves to recruit another team to fill in for the Blue Crush.  The West Texas Fastlane were finishing up a game on an adjacent field and when approached with the offer for their girls to get in an extra game, they graciously accepted the thought and were ready to play some more ball.

Both teams stepped up and performed defensively from the very beginning.  With laid out, diving catches becoming routine all day in front of the many College Recruiters and Coaches in attendance, the fans were going crazy with excitement.  Amy Graham came through with an offensive explosion, going 2-for-3 with a single and driving in two runs on a massive, first-pitch, 240-foot Home Run, with one-out in the top of the final inning.   Brittany Swartz and Ashley Morris combined to pitch a great performance with another defensive shutdown in the 3 to 0 shutout.  This left the Titanium 3-&-0 for the day and due to face the Paris Thunder at 7:20 pm.

The Titanium batted first and left two stranded in the first.  The Thunder then followed by loading the bases in the bottom of the first and threatened to take the early lead to no avail, as the Titanium defense stepped up and got out of the inning allowing no score.  In the top of the second, the Titanium then had an opportunity to score with the bases loaded and one out.  The Thunder, escaped the inning with no harm on a great diving catch.  The Thunder once again loaded the bases in the bottom of the 4^th, but the Titanium All-Star in-field shut them down at the corners.  Amy Graham was again the offensive star of the game, going 3-for-3 with three singles, but was unfortunately left stranded all three times on base. Both teams shutout the side in the final inning, ending the game in a zero-to-zero tie. 

This left the Titanium heading back to their Hotel Rooms at around 10:00pm, with an impressive first day, having allowed ZERO runs to score thru four games.  They were undefeated, with a 3-0-&-1 record and had stirred up quite a buzz, while showcasing their skills in front of the Scouts and Coaches, especially considering that all of the Titanium players were young enough to be playing 16 and under fastpitch.

So, after a brief nights rest, the Titanium Ladies, Coaches, Parents and fans were back at the Ballfields bright-and-early Saturday morning, at 6:45am, ready to face their first opponent of the day the All-Mixed-Up.

The All-Mixed-Up were known to be one of the Hottest teams out of North Texas, a second year 14 and Under team that had played in 18 and under tournaments all season long throughout Texas, other then the 14U HOF where they finished seventh and a few other 14U Qualifier Tournaments that they either won or placed in the top three. 

The Titanium girls started off the game in the field and were obviously faced with fatigue.  Giving up three runs due to errors in the Top of the first inning, the girls put themselves into a lousy position to have to build out of.  The girls started off the bottom of the first inning with two consecutive strikeouts followed by Amy Graham’s second Home Run of the weekend.  The blast was a 225-foot first-pitch drive to deep left field.  This gave the team a little bit of a lift after the error filled first inning.  However, the girls were never able to get their bats going after that and wound up losing their first game of the weekend by a final score of 3-to-5.

This would have left the team with another three-hour break before their next game, but once again the Titanium decided to fill in for the absent Blue Crush and immediately following their defeat changed fields to play the vary reputable Arkansas Phenix.

The game started with each team stranding runners in scoring position.  It was a back and forth defensive battle, and then in the third inning with two outs, the Titanium emerged.  It was as though the Coffee or Energy drinks had finally set in and woke them from their trance.  The girls bashed the ball all inning and built a 4-to-0 lead, which was enough to hold on to the win by a final score of 5-to-1. 

Next up for the girls, after an hour and thirty minute break would be facing the Texas Flash.

Graham started the game in the circle once again and went three innings allowing only one hit and no runs with three strikeouts.  Ashley Morris came in to relieve the top of the fourth and gave up a couple of hard hit balls through the gaps, which allowed three runs to score.  The Titanium loaded the bases once and had runners on third two other times, but could never get that right hit to drive them in and wound up losing by a final score of 3-to-0.

It had been a long day and was nearing 100 degrees again.  The team had a break for the next six hours, not having to be back to the fields until 7:00 pm for their 8:00pm Showcase finale.  So they all headed back to the Hotel and found themselves some quick food and an air conditioner to relax.

Arriving back to the fields fully rested and prepared to face the Texas Comets, the girls looked 100% better right off the bat.  The Comets batted first facing the young Fire-Baller Brittany Swartz of Perry pitching and left one stranded in the first.  The Titanium then followed by doing the same in the bottom of the first.  It was a back-and-forth defensive battle with several unsuccessful opportunities to score.  Meagan Crocker’s perfectly executed reversing of the bat, behind her back bunt in the fourth inning, wowed the fans and the Texas Comets.  The other team was still talking about it following the game.  One Comet player was overheard asking at the end of the inning, “How did she do that”; adding “That was awesome” and a fan just laughed and stated, “These Oklahoma girls came down here to showcase their talents for the scouts, I hate to imagine if they were really trying to beat us”.  Both teams shutout the side in the final inning, ending the game in a zero-to-zero tie.

This gave the Titanium a successful conclusion to the College Showcase weekend with a winning record of 4-2-2 and they had showcased their talents in front of all the College Coaches and Scouts.  Graham led the team in offense going 9-for-18 with a .643 batting average, 2 Home Runs and a phenomenal slugging percentage of 1.071.  The Titanium (Young Guns) rotation wound up with an impressive 1.13 ERA for the entire festival, with Brittany Swartz, Amy Graham, Ashley Morris and Kayla Hart rotating as needed throughout the weekend.

The entire Titanium organization should hold their heads high because of this impressive performance and an overall proud representation of Green Country, the entire state of Oklahoma and NW Arkansas.

Congratulations to the entire Titanium organization for your hard work and dedication.  Please, everyone congratulate these young Ladies when you see them again and let them know how proud we are of their hard work and dedication on and off the field.  Also, feel free to leave them a Message in their Guest Book on their Web-Site at http://www.eteamz.com/titanium