
{"id":406,"date":"2007-06-07T12:23:18","date_gmt":"2007-06-07T20:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/06\/07\/shes-got-game\/"},"modified":"2007-06-08T11:49:51","modified_gmt":"2007-06-08T19:49:51","slug":"shes-got-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/06\/07\/shes-got-game\/","title":{"rendered":"She&#8217;s got game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Rec league\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only girl is a force to be reckoned with<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Out on the baseball diamonds of the Carrboro Recreation and Parks league, amid a sea of teenage boys, perhaps it will surprise you to see a blonde ponytail poking out of a pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cap.<\/p>\n<p>What certainly will surprise you is the rocket behind the arm of that young athlete.<\/p>\n<p>Emily Boykin, 15, has been playing baseball with the boys since she was five years old. But each year, as she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advanced through the various Carrboro leagues, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s found herself with fewer female teammates.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, for about the past five years now she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been the only girl.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody thinks that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weird, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just gotten used to it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Boykin said. It helps that the guys on her team don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to treat her any differently.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/emily1.jpg\" title=\"emily1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/emily1.jpg\" alt=\"emily1.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much treated as one of the guys,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said her mom, Julie Boykin.<br \/>\nBoykin pitches for the Tigers in Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 13-to-15-year-old league and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also the starting catcher for the varsity girl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s softball team as a freshman at Cedar Ridge High School.<\/p>\n<p>Riley Marcoplos, one of Boykin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long-time Carrboro teammates, said sometimes other teams think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little strange when a girl takes the pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mound.<\/p>\n<p>But, he added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She can throw harder than a lot of the players on their team.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Mark Marcoplos has been Boykin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s baseball coach for the past five years and said he has rarely seen any of the guys treat her differently than their other teammates.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Her level of play will not allow that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For her to play at this level is really remarkable.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just been the girl out there on the field \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been one of the best players,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos added.<\/p>\n<p>The Tigers have been undefeated on the field this season: their one loss is for a game they had to forfeit because not enough players were able to attend. Now they head to the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I truly believe this is the best team in Carrboro Rec history,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos said. Most of the Tigers have been playing together for years, Boykin included.<\/p>\n<p>This was Boykin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first year playing school softball, and she said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a little difficult going back and forth between baseball and softball practices and games.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It keeps me pretty busy just playing one sport,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n<p>But Boykin insisted on playing baseball this year because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her last year of eligibility in the league \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and while she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to continue softball, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t many opportunities for her to play baseball.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Softball] is completely different,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she continued, adding that it sometimes has been tricky making the necessary changes to her swing when going from one game to the next.<\/p>\n<p>While Boykin is modest about her baseball and softball skills, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been selected to the 22-player All-Conference softball team.<\/p>\n<p>Although she will continue to play softball, Boykin said she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll miss baseball.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have to figure out some place else to play,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rec league\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only girl is a force to be reckoned with By Susan Dickson Staff Writer Out on the baseball diamonds of the Carrboro Recreation and Parks league, amid a sea of teenage boys, perhaps it will surprise you to see a blonde ponytail poking out of a pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cap. What certainly will surprise you&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}