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9/9/2014 Sophie Baker ’16 played for the United States team during the LG Cup International Women's Baseball Tournament in South Korea in August. Sophie, who has played baseball since first grade, pitches and plays second base at Groton. Sophie was one of 10 players on the U.S. team, one of eight teams from seven countries in the all-female baseball tournament. One of Sophie’s coaches from a summer program—Justine Siegal, founder of Baseball for All—had invited girls from around the country who were playing on high school boys teams to compete in South Korea. The LG Cup welcomed one team each from the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and India, and two teams from South Korea. Sophie relished the experience. “It’s the closest I’ll ever be to the Olympics,” she says. She quickly built camaraderie with her teammates, but says it was challenging at first because none of them had played together before. While the U.S. team didn’t make the finals—Japan beat South Korea in the championship—the team did rack up one win, a 13-0 blowout against Taiwan. Sophie played all four games of the tournament, against Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, and powerhouse Japan. She pitched in one game but spent most of the tournament at second base, and she scored a total of four times. Besides playing women’s baseball internationally for the first time, Sophie experienced another first: abundant media attention. The tournament was broadcast on Korean television. “It was crazy; there were cameras everywhere,” Sophie says. “I was interviewed six times.” |
