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Florida-commit Layla Lamar, #3 in the 2024 Extra Elite 100, has been rehabbing a knee injury this fall, but that hasn’t stopped her from being with her Lady Dukes-Lamar teammates… and from blogging for Extra Inning Softball.
Layla will blog about all her adventures with the Lady Dukes this year and share them with us.
You can also read a profile on her we did titled: Layla Lamar… Great Bloodlines For One of the Best Talents In the Nation.
Here’s the latest with Layla, including a trip to Phoenix, AZ, Jan. 6-10 for the PGF Arizona Winter Invitational.
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LADY DUKES PGF ARIZONA WINTER INVITATIONAL RECAP
This weekend was by far the best weekend we had all year!
We took a trip to Phoenix, Arizona, and before we left for Arizona we had team Zoom calls to go over film and prepare for the teams we would face over the weekend. That preparation set us up to have a great weekend.
(2024 Florida commit) Alexia Carasquillo was still in town from a camp we had that past weekend, so Alexia and I got to work out and put some work in at the cages together.
Wednesday morning, we went to the RDU Airport for a 7 a.m. flight out to Arizona. We arrived there around noon and went to the hotel to take a nap before practice.
Practice started at about 4 p.m. There were only a few of us that were able to make it since it was so early in the week, but we paired with our 16U team and that made for a great practice.
The girls spent lots of time on team defense and at the end of practice Coach Rene Lynch threw front toss on the field and it was fun to watch the ball fly. We must’ve lost at least 20 balls over the fence!
We ended practice around 7 p.m. and then went out to eat. We found this place none of us have ever been to before that was called “The Buffalo Spot.” On our team, you can’t ever go wrong with chicken, so everyone liked it! We ended the night by going back to the hotel, unpacking and trying to get used to the time change. Everyone was excited for our full team practice Thursday afternoon.
Thursday morning I had to wake up at 5 a.m. to be ready for class because of the time change in AZ. I only had a little bit of schoolwork to do that day, I took a nap and then Jolyna, Jada and I all woke up around the same time. We got up and got ready, got breakfast and then did some shopping before practice. We found a LuluLemon pop-up store and spent like an hour in there and before we knew it, it was time to head back to the hotel to get dressed for practice!
The practice field was only about 15 minutes away, so we got there rather quickly. This was a full team practice and everyone from the 18U team was there on Thursday. We got new jerseys to pair with our grey pants, so Coach passed out the new unis, which made for a great start to practice!
When practice got started, the girls focused on the basics. They did basic throwing and cut-and-relay drills for the longest. Following that, I did some homework in the dugout while they did a little bit of conditioning. After they finished, 16U did 21 outs, while 18U ran bases and then they flip flopped.
In my opinion, the best part of practice was two-lane hitting, watching everyone hit shots and some girls even hit people’s houses behind the field we were practicing at; it was fun to watch. Two-lane was quick and we wrapped up and headed over to another field to scrimmage the AZ Storm for about an hour and a half.
Honestly, in this scrimmage we got a taste of AZ weather during the night really quick! The girls did well and got to see how pitch calling, defense plays and shifts were a little different on the West Coast; this is something that was really important when we got to playing games that counted during the tournament. We came out of this scrimmage with a win and that got everyone excited to play on Friday.
After the scrimmage, it was really late and lots of restaurants were closed, so we went back to the same place as the night before, “The Buffalo Spot.” We headed back to the hotel after dinner. We were all pretty tired and went to sleep a couple hours later.
Friday, I didn’t have classes, so I got to sleep in a little bit. When we all woke up, we got breakfast and tried “Dutch Bros.” They do not have them in NC or anywhere on the East Coast I’m pretty sure … so we went to try it and it was so good. I think it was better than Starbucks, so we definitely wanted to go back again.
After we ate, we went to the field for warm-ups and we were getting ready to play Corona Angels-Tyson 18U. We were very prepared for their team. We spent lots of time reviewing film and making a game plan for their team.
In my opinion, we played a great game and had the opportunity to beat them. Where we failed was by leaving to many runners on base. Despite that, in the last inning we were down by a run and got bases loaded, (uncommitted 2023) Jaylah Jarrell, (uncommitted 2025) Anna Roman (2025 uncommitted) and (uncommitted 2022) Jalia Lassiter had some good at-bats and that led to the pitcher walking in a run.
We came up short in the end, but we finished the game with a 4-4 tie. It was fun to watch the team compete against a top-5 team in the country and I think we did very well. Following that we had a back-to-back game and played against the Rogue FC Kaye at 6:45 p.m. It got pretty cold out there, but we played very strong and beat them 12-3 in a 6-inning game.
We wrapped up on the field and tried to find a Mexican restaurant for dinner, but the wait was like two hours for all of us, so we ended up going to Red Robin for a team dinner and it was super fun. We had a huge table and made lots of memories!
As soon as we got back to the hotel, everyone knocked out because we had an 8 a.m. game.
Saturday
This is when things started to get interesting. We started the day off with an 8 a.m. game that we won. We played Newtown Rock and beat them 4-0. We played a solid game and then we had a big break until we played the Lil’ Rebels at 4:45 p.m. During the break we went to get food and took a nap at the hotel.
After the break we went to a new park and we played the Lil’ Rebels at 4:45 p.m. This was not our best game. We did not have much energy and played really slow. We came through at the end though and pulled out a 4-0 win once we finally got the bats going.
Now, onto the highlight of the night, the Bandits-Hebling game. Going into this game we thought it would just be our typical night game with lots of energy, but that was not necessarily the case.
First, they gave up their home advantage, so we got to go in the field first and that’s exactly what we wanted! (2022 Duke commit) Cassidy Curd was our starting pitcher. She threw two pitches and got the first two batters in their lineup out, then the umpire called time and asked if the girls on our team had on metal cleats.
Our initial reaction was like, “Duh … what 18U team wouldn’t be wearing metal cleats at this point?” But the umpire told us that at the park we were at, metal cleats were not allowed even though we were on a dirt field.
The other coach and umpires said we all had to be in either molded cleats, turfs or non-metal shoes so everyone except two girls on our team did not have rubber cleats with them. They paused the time on the game, some girls switched shoes with their parents, some had to find their turfs and lots of us switched shoes.
It was chaos! But we figured it out and we were ready to continue the game but the coach of the other team said we had an “unfair advantage” for literally only two pitches and he wanted to start the game over. He wanted to protest the game so after both coaches spoke to the tournament heads, we ended up having to start the game over.
We finally got the game going and we scored two runs. Meanwhile, they only had one run. Then all of a sudden the lights on the field shut off. It was pitch black and one of the umpires called ball game. But obviously the other coach was not going to go for that, so he protested the game, then both coaches and umpires had to talk to the tournament director and decide what was going to happen.
Meanwhile, we were having the time of our lives. All of us girls went in the outfield with our speaker and cut up until coach got back!
He finally got back and they decided that we would finish the game the next morning at 8 a.m. at a different field and everyone would be able to wear their cleats. On that note, we packed up all of the equipment and headed out!
It was super late when we left the field, so we got In-N-Out and I was so excited about it. We hadn’t had it since the last time at PGF. We ate dinner and then got back to the hotel. After doing some laundry, we went to bed and were ready to finish the game the next morning!
Sunday…
We got up early Sunday morning to be at the field at 6:45 a.m. After warm-ups, we started the game right from where we left off from the night before with Cassidy Curd at-bat and (uncommitted 2022) Jalia Lassiter on first base.
We had a big inning and scored three runs. They came back and scored four runs, making it a tied ball game. But like we always do we came back and scored a run. We went into the last inning winning 6-5 and we got off of defense without letting a run score.
By the time we got on offense, two batters went up to the plate and then the umpire called ball game and the time ran out. That was a big win for everyone all around, we faced a lot of adversity and even started the game over, but we still came out with the W. I think in moments like that we really show how good of a team we are.
After an emotional game, we played the AZ Hotshots. A few of our players had to leave during this game because of their flights, but we still came out of the game with a 7-1 win. After this game, we didn’t have enough players to keep going through this tournament so we pulled out and headed to the airport.
Overall, we went to Arizona and played some very good teams and left undefeated with a record of 5-0-1. I am so proud of the way all of my teammates played this fall. I think everyone grew up and we are definitely going to be a team to keep your eyes on this summer.
Personally, I can’t wait to get back on the field with them and go out with a bang next summer, just how we did this fall!
— Layla Lamar #17