Alabama Softball Going to Italy this Summer!!

[TropicalSooner]

I've never seen this before, but apparently it is the third time the Crimson Tide have pulled this off.
What a fantastic opportunity for their softball team. They will travel to Italy in July and play a series of 4 games against the Team Italy National team as that team prepares for their International team play.
Apparently it is funded in part by the Alabama "Walk-off" Club. I expect all totally funded by private donations but trying to find that out for sure.
The entire team including the new freshmen for this fall, plus any new incoming transfers from the portal that have completed signing their commitment and other Univ paperwork will all be able to make the trip and play with the team. Montana Fouts was also making the trip although it's unknown that she'll play....probably going as a mentor to the team. Imagine you being a brand new incoming freshman at the Univ of Alabama, and your very first game you play with your team is in Italy against their National Team! Wow!

Anyway, thought this was interesting and of course the thoughts began wandering through my mind about whether anything like this would be possible for our National Champion Sooners. The pro team Okla City Spark just concluded a two game series with Great Britain last night (and won both games incidentally) and may possibly try to build a bridge to do similar exhibition games in the future. I don't know if the Sooners could play games with the GB Nat'l Team or some other National Team. I recall our 3 game series with Team Mexico a couple of years ago, but that was at Marita Hynes.

Here is the tweet from Bama Coach Murphy regarding the trip:

[The Far Journey]

A trip to play any team would be great for the young women, but the only two teams it would be fair for them to play would be the Japanese national team and Team USA, and Team USA wouldn't do it. Too embarrassing for them.