Members of the Illinois softball team are writing a blog, which will be published throughout the 2018-19 school year. Follow all the action of Head coach Tyra Perry's squad right here on FIGHTINGILLINI.com.
Hello Illinois softball fans!
My name is Danielle Dennis and I am a freshman infielder/utility player from Sherman, Illinois, majoring in kinesiology.
I am the lucky one who will start the ball rolling with our first Behind the Shield for the season! So many things to talk about, but as soon as I stepped onto campus, I noticed how welcoming, caring and special it is to be a part of this team and school. It is a great privilege to be from Illinois and playing for the home state. However, what is really neat is we have players from a bunch of different states such as California, Illinois, Minnesota, and so on, that will come together as one. As of this year, we have 10 newcomers - which is a big number. The returning players have been incredible and have welcomed each and every one of us by making us feel right at home. Not only is the softball team welcoming, but everyone around campus is as well.
I will admit, it has been a crazy busy, but an exciting two weeks here. We started off the first week of softball with team meetings and something we like to call "Nike Christmas." This is where we are fortunate enough to receive all our awesome blue and orange Illini gear which we wear with pride everywhere we go. We even got to do some team bonding and go see The Sandlot at the movie theatre. Recently, we finished up our two weeks of individuals and just had our first team practice on Sunday! Everybody is working very hard at all the practices, conditioning and lifting sessions. You can see that this is a great group of coaches and players full of energy, dedication and chemistry. We are going to do some special things together and I am very excited to see where this will take us this upcoming season.
As you probably know our fall sports teams are all on a hot streak, and we are going to continue this with a few wins of our own soon enough. Our fall ball games are the weekends of September 29-30 and October 5-6, with our Alumni game on October 14. All games will be played at Eichelberger Field, so make sure to come on out and support our team this year!! Thank you for your support and as always, Go Illini!
Danielle Dennis
