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A GoFundMe has been launched to help a club team replace thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment stolen while playing at a national tournament last month.
Taylor Sain, a 2023 pitcher/first baseman with the Virginia Crushers 18U team who will attend West Virginia Wesleyan, tells the story here of how the theft occurred and how she and her team are hoping the softball community can help offset the expensive loss of the valuable property that was stolen:
My 18U Virginia Crushers team arrived in Nashville, Tenn., on July 2nd to play in the weeklong USSSA Southeast National Championship.
We were staying at the DoubleTree Suites off Atrium Way in Nashville near the airport and woke up early Monday morning July 3rd to prepare for opening ceremonies and the skills competitions.
But when we went out of the hotel, we discovered our team trailer and $15,000 worth of team equipment was missing!
It was a 10-year collection of softball equipment—from warm-up and practice gear to a few players’ entire gear bags. Two of our senior players who are heading to play college ball in the fall had their entire gear bags stolen.
The trailer was stolen from our hotel parking lot sometime between 10 pm and 5 am despite being locked up multiple different ways. The gates for the parking lot were not operational and the hotel doesn’t have security cameras!
The team was devastated and after calling police and filing a report we had to come together and make the decision that we would do whatever it took for the girls to be able to play in the tournament.
Our team had worked too hard to allow a thief to ruin it all.
We ended up having to purchase some gear and borrowed some too, but our girls did not let the terrible circumstances get them down and went out and played with heart all week!
Within 30 hours of the trailer and equipment being stolen, the trailer was located on Facebook marketplace by our head coach’s wife about 90 miles away in Kentucky.
With the help of Nashville Metro police and Hart County Sheriff’s office, we were able to recover our stolen trailer but none of the equipment was inside and our team logos had been removed from the outside of the trailer.
It took a little longer to get our GoFundMe set up because our Virginia Crushers Fastpitch Organization is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit so, unfortunately, when the news article came out it wasn’t ready yet.
We are now trying to get it more exposure so we can try and replace the $15,000 worth of team gear that was stolen and make sure our seniors have what they need to play in college.
Unfortunately, Nashville Metro police are overwhelmed and haven’t been able to investigate our case any further.
With each day that passes we lose a little more hope of recovering any of the missing gear. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at this e-mail: [email protected].
The story was picked up by WKRN 2 News, the local ABC affiliate in Nashville… here’s that report:
If you would like to help, click HERE to go to the GoFundMe page which—at the time of this article’s publication—had reached about 20% of its intended goal of $15,000.
— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball