The day is drawing nearer: Nearly thirty invited athletes will report to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on October 1st for a week-long tryout camp that will ultimately lead to the formation of the United States Olympic softball roster for the 2020 Games in Tokyo, Japan.
After a gold medal victory in the Pan American Games, the US National Team posed with their coaching staff and gold medals. Each athlete was dressed similarly in a blue warm-up outfit; some posed with their newly-earned hardware, while others simply smiled for the camera. In the back row of the photo, however, stood three athletes, smiling along with their teammates despite the lack of gold medals around their own necks.
Those three athletes were Shelby Pendley, Jazmyn Jackson, and Ally Carda, who were named as “replacement players” for the Pan Am Games earlier this summer. With softball rosters limited to just fifteen players for the continental competition, Team USA had to pare down a bit of the 18-member list of players that they carried throughout the summer. The trio of Pendley, Jackson, and Carda were able to travel with their teammates, but could not compete in the tournament.
For many observers, the three players’ exclusion from the 2019 trimmed-down roster makes them the most in jeopardy of being left off of the final Olympic roster. Whether or not Carda has paid attention to similar speculation, the former UCLA great is concentrating intently on earning her spot on the plane to Japan.
“I tried not to skip a beat with it,” Carda said of learning that she would be a replacement player for the Pan Am Games. “Obviously, everyone wants to be on the roster, but I didn’t get to be. Once you take your mind off of what you’re trying to do, or let the ‘what ifs’ come into play, then I think you’re screwed at that point… I just have a new goal for myself. I have nothing to lose now, so I’m going to go with that… rather than telling myself that I’m trying to prove something, I think I am here for a reason. Having that kind of go-getter mentality will help me get to where I want to be.”
To be sure, Carda’s performances throughout the summer have not been unimpressive. At the International Cup in early July, the right-hander recorded 6.1 innings of work in a pair of appearances against Japan, allowing two runs with six strikeouts across both games.
In 2015, Carda joined the coaching staff of Cal Poly, a school that competes in the Big West Conference. She spent four years as the pitching coach for the Mustangs, a tenure that included helping lead the program to a berth in the NISC postseason tournament’s final round. Earlier this summer, the news broke that Carda had departed from her position as Cal Poly’s pitching coach.
“”It was definitely tough,” Carda said of her decision to leave the Mustangs. “I was there for four years; I built a lot of relationships with the players and the pitchers that I worked with, so it was a little tougher than I thought, leaving them. But when I did come into Cal Poly in my first year, my boss and the other coaches were aware of what I wanted to be, and [that]I wanted to be on the US team in four years, so while it was a tough conversation, they were aware of it from the beginning and really supported my journey and helped me train, play, and coach, all at the same time.”
One hallmark of the current edition of the US national team roster is versatility. Not only does the word apply to position players, it also describes the majority of the team’s pitching staff: Three of the five pitchers on the roster also swing the bat.
“We’ve seen it play out where we don’t even see just one pitcher throwing the whole game as much anymore,” Carda noted. “We’re using our staff more, and pitchers who do hit allow our staff to be more versatile.”
USA head coach Ken Eriksen is well-known for his mastery of the lineup card. Something of a magician with his use of the flex position and versatile players in his defensive alignment, the longtime South Florida head coach’s knowledge in that aspect of the game has also been of benefit to Carda and her pitching compatriots: “We might have three pitchers in the lineup, and two of them might be hitting while one pitches, and we keep rotating in and out. We’ve seen that a lot. I think it makes our pitching staff stronger because we can play situationally as much as we want… that makes us all stronger.”
Let’s not forget Carda’s days as a UCLA Bruin, either. Though mentioned often as a mere biographical note, rarely detailed is the collegiate success of the Elk Grove, California native. Carda was twice a first-team all-American and earned the PAC-12’s Player of the Year award in back-to-back seasons, 2014 and ’15. She ended her career at Easton Stadium as the program’s all-time leader in pitching appearances and with 100 career victories to her credit.
Team USA finished their summer schedule on September 1st, and members of the summer roster have been left to their own devices before they will again gather in Oklahoma City. A self-described workhorse, you won’t have found Carda napping in the meantime.
“I work out constantly,” she said. “I want to put myself in the best physical shape that I can, because when I’m in the best physical shape, that helps me mentally. I’m more confident and I know I’m able to play if I need to in a game; I can play all positions, pitch, hit, have to run and go pitch or switch positions, whatever my role might be. Whatever that is, I want to be prepared for it… after that, my focus is that I want to become a better pitcher right now. I think that’s my biggest role in getting on the team. I want to get as many live batters as I can… I need to go down to [Los Angeles] and work out with some catchers. It’s hard when you’re out of college and don’t have a specific catcher when you go to your hometown. Trying to find a consistent routine is a big part of it.”
While putting a large part of her focus on the physical side of the game prep, Carda’s veteran instincts kick in as she notes the equal importance of the mental aspects of softball. “I’m in a better position now pitching-wise with the outcomes of things, but also my mentality,” she shared. “Building off of that, coach Eriksen [and I]have been working on some mechanical things that have helped my pitching, but also helped my mentality; my confidence in the circle, in the game.”
As she looks to culminate her five-year tenure on the US national team with an Olympic roster spot, Carda’s work ethic and solid summer performances could be just the ticket to seeing her name on the roster headed to Tokyo next summer.
