00:00Hi, my name is Rachel Iovine. I'm from Full Park, New York. I attend the Mary
00:04Louis Academy and I had the opportunity to play softball in Italy. So I had the
00:09opportunity to play softball in Italy because I was going over to visit my
00:13family in Italy and my dad reached out to Chris Vicario. He's the vice president
00:18of the Italian American Baseball Foundation and he reached out to teams
00:21in Italy for me to play with and one of them liked me, Sirono Softball, and they
00:26asked you to come play and yeah, here I am. It was definitely a little bit of a
00:29shock. You know, I was 17 at the time. It was definitely a different experience but
00:34I was really happy that I got to do it because I got to play with such like
00:39experienced players, with players from the Czech national team, the Italian
00:42national team, multiple D1 players in the U.S. that finished playing that came over
00:46to play professionally. So it was like a lot of information that I got to get to
00:51improve my skill. So after I got to play softball in Italy, I wanted to return the
00:56favor because I got to achieve one of my dreams of being able to play in Italy. So a
01:01lot of the girls in Italy wanted to come over and see what it was like to play in
01:06the U.S. So three of the girls that I played with, they came over and they got to
01:11stay with me for about like two or three months and they played with my travel
01:16team and yeah, they got to go to a lot of different showcases. We went to a tournament
01:20in Florida. So I got to see the Florida heat and meet all the coaches down in Florida
01:24and it was a great experience for them. Did they get to go to Disney World at all?
01:28No, no, sadly we did not, no. So one of the girls that I got really close with, she
01:33was a year older than me, Uli Puli. She was from Rome so we made some carbonara
01:40together so it was great to see like how a true Roman makes it. So yeah, my goals this
01:45season are definitely just to become like the best player I can and to improve my
01:49skill to the max. I definitely want to get my batting average up and gain more
01:53power in my swing and I also want to make my throws more accurate from the
01:57outfield and if I'm playing on the infield, you know, every ball that I can.
02:01And then also, so right now I'm like at, I'm averaging at one hit a game so I'm
02:05trying to get that up, you know, two, three hits if I can. I am a utility player. I
02:10can, I pitch for seven years, I can catch, I can play anywhere in the infield,
02:14anywhere in the outfield. It's really just so wherever you need me type of thing
02:17because I want to do whatever I can to be able to get as much playing time as I
02:22can. So being able to play and like do my best at every position is just my way
02:29of securing a spot on the field. So I will be attending Lake Region State
02:33College in North Dakota play softball. It's a little different than Italy. Yeah,
02:39definitely, definitely, yeah. Now how are you going to handle the culinary challenges of
02:44playing in North Dakota? That, I'm working that on, I'm working on that with my dad
02:51right now. Um, we're working on getting me some like hot plates and finding some
02:57good like grocery stores that I can get some good quality products at. I know when
03:03we went to go visit, we were looking at the grocery store and we saw some uni
03:06tomatoes, which my dad loves. So I'll definitely be making some pasta with those, but yeah.
03:11You think you'll end up being the, uh, team Sunday sauce? Yeah, yeah, maybe, yeah. I think
03:17that might be a high possibility.
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