Resurgent Blythe heads for Italy
Published 5:34 pm Saturday, July 25, 2015
For former King’s Fork High School softball star Megan Blythe, all roads presently lead to Rome.
Myriad responsibilities last year prevented her from having the kind of junior season she wanted with West Virginia University Institute of Technology.
This summer, Blythe remains busy preparing to represent the United States on the softball diamond in Italy.
“I’ve been to the Bahamas before, but this is my first big trip out of the country,” she said. “I’m definitely excited to see what it’s like over there.”
She was given this opportunity with an organization called USA Athletes International by her coach at WVU Tech, Amber Affholter.
“During the summer of 2005, I played in Italy for the same program, and because I am an alumni of the program, they had asked me to coach a team this year in Italy,” Affholter said.
USAAI has been participating in international competition since 1992. Originally the organization provided overseas playing opportunities for baseball players. Currently, the organization supports a total of 15 different sports in 25 different nations.
As coach of the USAAI softball squad, Affholter assembled the roster and chose three of her WVU Tech players to join her, including Blythe.
“Megan is one of my top players,” Affholter said. “This year, she didn’t do as well as she would have hoped for, but she works hard, she listens and she has developed a lot since the first time I met her.”
“And all throughout the summer, she’s worked on her skills and she hits every day; she has a personal trainer,” the coach continued. “I knew she’d put in the work to be ready to go. And she’s an all-around good athlete. She’s a two-year All-American here at Tech, so she was a great choice for me to pick.”
Blythe and her teammates will leave the U.S. on Monday and arrive in Rome Tuesday.
The 2015 Tuscany Series softball tournament features a small variety of international teams and will run July 29 through Aug. 2 in Arezzo, Italy.
While in Italy, the girls will have the chance to do some sightseeing in Arezzo, Pisa, Florence and Rome. They return to the U.S. on Aug. 5.
Blythe looks forward to creating more positive moments on the softball field after a junior season that did not go as well as she wanted it to.
“I had a lot on my plate,” she said. While tutoring 20 hours a week, “I took 20 credits, and I was (a resident assistant), and I did cheering along with softball, so all of that mixed together did not help out my softball stuff, because I was just way overwhelmed.”
Being an RA and cheering helped out with college costs, she said. She cheered competitively when she was younger, and she had been offered scholarship money to cheer at WVU Tech.
Despite her schedule, she still was named a Golden Bear Star Performer of the Week in April and helped her team (14-22) finish the season strong, winning seven of its last 10 games.
“She’s a good role model for our younger 10 freshmen who came in,” Affholter said. “She worked very hard on and off the field despite all the difficulties she had to go through this last year.”