ESPNHS Softball

This is not a story about softball. Nor is this a story for the fainthearted, the weak-minded or the jelly-legged.

This is a story for all of us who are inspired by people who exemplify the can-do, never-give-up spirit so necessary in sports and perhaps even more in life.

The story begins on June 3, 2011 -- a Friday. Bella Secaira, a catcher at Newport Harbor (Newport Beach, Calif.) who had just been named the Daily Pilot Newport-Mesa Player of the Year, was trying to help out a friend.

"She was having a bad day, and I was trying to convince her to talk," Secaira said. "So I told her, 'Let's go up on the roof. We'll get away from everything and no one will be able to hear us.'"

Her friend agreed. They'd go up on Secaira’s apartment roof and talk it out. Just two teenagers trying to remove themselves from the world and have a heart-to-heart. But when they got to the roof and decided to move to an even more secluded sanctuary on the roof of the apartment building next door, June 3 turned into anything but a normal Friday in the Secaira household.

"We had to climb through a tree to get to the next house," Secaira said. "[My friend] went first and made it."

But then, as Secaira attempted to duplicate her friend's movements, the sudden snap of a branch underneath her feet sent her on a 35-foot free fall.

For Secaira, perhaps the only thing scarier is that she remembers every detail.

"I still have dreams about it,” she said. “There was so much pain when I landed. I tried to sit up, but then everything went numb and I fell back down."

The bodily damage was severe: a broken rib had punctured her lung and she had more bumps and bruises than a seasoned UFC fighter. But what offered the most peril was a broken C2 vertebra in her neck, an injury that forced doctors to induce unconsciousness so her body stayed completely still. If her body had moved the wrong way, she could have been paralyzed.

After 24 hours of unconsciousness, Secaira woke up to find Tony Rico, her 18 Gold Worth Firecrackers coach, holding her hand at bedside. The doctors told the family that she wouldn't play softball for at least a year, but Secaira told Rico that she'd be back much sooner than that.

"The first thing I noticed at the hospital was the calmness and peacefulness in her face and in her eyes," Rico said. "She had to communicate to me by writing words on a board because she had a tube in her throat, and her first words to me were 'Thank you.' It wasn't about her, it was about the people around her."

Immediately, this determined Firecracker went to work, starting first with lower-body workouts because any activity above the waist was off limits. And day by day, the Firecracker shone brighter, earning the respect and admiration of all who were witnesses.

One friend who noticed was Firecrackers teammate Karley Wester, now a junior outfielder at Edison (Huntington Beach, Calif.).

"I just admired the way she worked so hard to get back out onto the field again," Wester said. "I always thought to myself, 'I wonder if I could ever rebound from that.'"

Little did Wester know, she'd get her chance. In August, on the very day that Secaira got her neck brace removed and came to the field to cheer on her teammates, Wester was stealing second base and collided shin-on-shin with the covering shortstop, shattering her left tibia.

"They pulled me off the field and Bella was there telling me to hang in there," Wester said. "Her accident and the way she handled it with such a positive attitude really helped me to stay positive through the pain as well."

To this day, Secaira, who was cleared by doctors to play in September and hopes to be ready for her junior season this spring, continues to inspire people by the way she handled her near-fatal fall. Recently, at one of Rico's clinics, she made a statement to the audience about the importance of remaining positive, whether you're striking out or you can't pay your bills.

"She got a standing ovation from people of all ages," Rico said.

"This whole experience changed my life and the way I look at things," said Secaira, who has committed to Utah. "At the end of the day, it's about making sure you're happy. Maybe that's why I'm still here. So I can teach people that being successful is about being happy, in sports and in life."

Broken neck or not, that's a girl with extraordinary backbone.

Softball featured dramatic rallies, historic seasons, inspirational players and a whole lot of reasons to celebrate in 2011. Here are 10 stories we’ll remember well into the New Year.

Winning Woodlands
The Woodlands put together one of the best seasons in Texas history, posting a 44-1 record to claim the Class 5A state championship and the POWERADE FAB 50 national championship. The Highlanders beat defending champion Pearland 6-0 in the semifinals and then clipped O’Connor (San Antonio) 7-5 to win the championship. Faith Bohack and Jessica Snyder hit home runs to back pitcher Paige McDuffee, who ended her season with a 37-1 record.

Gabriel goes international
Pitcher Erin Gabriel of Poland Seminary, the Gatorade State Softball Player of the Year for Ohio, became the lone high schooler to represent the United States as a member of the Junior National Team. She also was the first player from Ohio ever to be selected to the squad. The senior, who plans to play at Tennessee next year, went 1-0 as the U.S. won the 2011 ISF Junior Women’s World Championship in South Africa in mid-December.

Sweet ending
With two outs and two strikes and her team trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning of the CIF Southern Section Division I championship, Lauren Sweet of Santiago (Corona, Calif.) hit a grand slam to give her team a 4-1 win. Sweet was later named an Under Armour All-American, the Cal-Hi Sports Ms. Softball Player of the Year and an ESPNHS first-team All-American. Santiago's victory also enabled the Sharks to finish No. 1 in the final state rankings and No. 5 in the final POWERADE FAB 50.

Catcher recovers
Catcher Bella Secaira of Newport Harbor (Newport Beach, Calif.), who suffered a collapsed lung, a spinal-cord fracture and a concussion after falling 30 feet from the roof of her apartment building in June, recovered and returned to her club team with a new perspective. “You strike out five times, your life’s not over,” she told the Orlando Sentinel in September. “Are you healthy? Are you happy? Then you're good.” Secaira expects to be back playing for her high school team in the spring and has given a verbal commitment to the University of Utah.

McDuffee stays busy
It was quite a year for lefty pitcher Paige McDuffee. Arguably the top recruit in the country, McDuffee decommitted from LSU and then committed to UCLA after legendary LSU head coach Yvette Girouard retired. McDuffee also won the Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year Award after she led The Woodlands (Texas) to a state and national title.

Crandol on the mend
After a six-month battle with cancer, pitcher Katie Crandol of Andrean (Merrillville, Ind.) celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends. After Crandol was diagnosed with the disease in March, doctors removed a three-inch tumor from her brain, and she underwent rounds of radiation and chemotherapy. In October, an MRI came back clear. Through it all, the community rallied around the Crandol family -- softball teams cleaned her parents’ house and cooked meals, T-shirts were sold, dinners were hosted in her honor and local businesses held fundraisers. Now Crandol can start to look ahead to 2012. “This spring I want to get out there and show my coach -- all of them -- that I can do it,” she told nwitimes.com in November.

Alabama slammer
With her big bat, Shelby Holley of Pisgah (Ala.) set two national home run records in 2011. Her last blast, which came in her final at-bat, set the single-season mark at 35. For her career, Holley hit 72 home runs, another national record. Holley’s record-setting season helped lead Pisgah to the Class 3A state championship. She has signed with Jacksonville State.

Sweet repeat
Down by a run and down to their final out, the SoCal Athletics staged a dramatic rally to defeat the favored Worth Firecrackers and claim their second consecutive PGF Nationals national championship. "Our team was on the same page in the dugout because we had done it last year,” catcher Aubree Munro said. “We were all like, 'We can do this!' It's never over with our team."

Whole lot of Swagger
Playing in their final game before heading off to college, Team Swagger got an extra-inning, walk-off double from Sara Driesenga to defeat Team Hype 6-5 at the 2011 Under Armour All-America Game at ESPN Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Driesenga, who was named MVP, is set to play at Michigan in the spring.

Sport spreads
Beverly Bandits, a top travel team based in Illinois, won the Louisville Slugger Independence Day Tournament in Boulder, Colo., for the second time in four years. By winning one of the summer’s biggest and best tournaments, which is a combination of recruiting and championship play, the Bandits showed that softball is alive and well throughout the country.