KELLEY RENNER
Written by KELLEY RENNER on May 17th, 2017.
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| My selection to the NZ JWSX last year has provided me an opportunity to play the game that I love for the country of my heritage. My dad was born in Lower Hutt, new Zealand and came to the USA after he graduated from Canterbury NZ. I was born in Palo Alto, California and so I have dual NZ/USA citizenship. I have been to NZ a couple of times and my grandparents still live in Upper Hutt. It is really special to be able to represent New Zealand and I was very emotional when they handed me the Junior White Sox uniform in Hawaii last year. I can’t wait to get to Florida this year and do all I can to help the team and meet up with my “kiwi” teammates again. Even though I have had a lot of softball success in the USA with my High School and Travel Ball teams there is nothing like representing my country and the responsibility that means. I have to admit one of the scariest parts of joining the team at the start was learning the maori words and the haka. I was in a tournament in Denver, Colorado a month before I went to Hawaii and I spent every night in the hotel room practicing the haka. I have to refresh for this year but I still remember it pretty well. Hope they don’t change anything!! Prior to July we will be in the middle of our Travel Ball season nationals over here. I have two of my Travel Ball team mates playing at the World Series, one for Mexico and one for Great Britain so I am sure we will watch each others games and meet up. It will be great if we play against each other but we won’t now until the draws are completed. We go back to High School starting mid August. This will be my senior year at High School before I head to University in August of 2018, where I have verbally committed to play on a scholarship with the University of California in San Diego. I am so excited to play for the Tritons and attend school, it is a great location and I plan to do a degree something associated to animals for a career. |
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