“Swimmers, take your marks!”

A beep signaled the start of the race, Tara dove into the pool, beginning her first IM (个人混合泳).Despite being a strong swimmer, the thought of the IM had made her nervous all morning. Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke (蛙泳), and freestyle. She’d been repeating the order in her head all morning, but had messed it up several times in practice.

Tara burst through the water, starting with the butterfly stroke. Soon, she touched the wall and made a swift turn, pushing off hard. She did one frog kick and drew her arms under the water for the breaststroke, then quickly turned over to her back. Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle. She knew the order, but she’d messed up again. Had the officials seen her mistake?

Tara smoothly completed her backstroke lap, then the breaststroke. She moved ahead, and kept the lead through the freestyle lap, scoring a comfortable win. She looked up at the scoreboard. The results listed her as the winner. Would that hold up after her mistake?

A few minutes later, the announce r read the results. Tara had been disqualified, meaning she’d scored none for her team. “Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, I knew the order” Tara muttered as she prepared for the final relay.

Each of the four relay members would complete one lap of the 25-meter pool, and all would swim freestyle. As the final swimmer, Tara had an opportunity to make up for the disqualification.

The first swimmers for each team were lined up at the end of the pool, shaking out their arms and legs as they loosened up. Tara reached her arms to the sides and gently swung them. All set, she thought.

Tara’s teammates swam well. After two lengths of the pool, they had a small lead. But the third swimmer fell back a bit. As the leader approached the wall, Tara’s teammate Hannah was slightly behind. “Come on, come on!” Tara whispered. She leaned forward, ready to spring as soon as Hannah touched the wall.

Soon after the leader dived into the pool, Tara did too.

Tara looked at her teammates, who were celebrating their second-place finish.

My aunt Helen is an expert on baseball. She is the one who taught me how to play well either as a pitcher (投手) or a batter (击球手). Also, she has always kept me spellbound by her stories of playing baseball as a batter in the 1940s — she was really good at swinging the bat. I love listening to her baseball story over and over. She always says, “Go after what you want. Don’t be afraid of failing. That was exactly what I did when I was young.”

And this is how her story goes.

In 1943, she was one of the young women trying out for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League which was created to entertain baseball fans because many of America’s young men were fighting in World War Ⅱ.

Aunt Helen had heard rumors that a team would play right in South Bend, Indiana. She dreamed of what it would be like to win a championship for her hometown! She imagined a large flag hanging at the baseball field, and on it the name Helen Baker would be there for all to see.

On the day of the tryouts, Aunt Helen played baseball for hours with many young women. For this new league, some of the rules were different from the rules for regular soft ball. They still used a standard soft ball, but the bases (垒) and pitcher’s mound (投球区土墩) were placed at longer distances, for example.

About a week later, Aunt Helen collected the mail and found an envelope with her name written in blue ink. The envelope was postmarked from Chicago, in which the letter was from the leaders of the girls’ baseball league! Wild with joy, Aunt Helen tore it open and learned that she had been invited to the league’s main tryouts!

But as the days went by, Aunt Helen became worried about traveling to Chicago. “What if I went all that way and failed?” She asked her father as usual, hesitation clear in her tone. When the day of the tryouts was drawing near, she was too afraid to go.

Paragraph 1: She locked herself in the bedroom for most of the day.

Paragraph 2: “Helen Baker!” Her name was called and it was her turn to try out.

For as long as her parents can remember, 11­-year­-old Breana Carsey has had this crazy dream. She has always wanted a mommy horse who would give birth to a baby horse, who would then grow up to become a racing champion.

“Absolutely, this was a fairy tale for her from day one. We put it off for five years because we don’t have a farm,” said her father, Brian Carsey, who explained that his daughter has “me wrapped around her finger”．

Her horse was born in the spring of 2013. Breana named it MJB Got Faith for the faith she instantly had in him.

“I really loved him. He’s super soft too,” she said.

But that quick bond posed a real problem for this Dad. See, for whatever reason, Brian thought once he explained to his daughter that her horse could never run in a race—that it was a runt from poor breeding stock—she would just agree to sell it.

“She thought her horse was priceless,” he said. “So I had a chat with my wife and we really got ourselves in a mess here. And I didn’t know how we were going to get out of this. So we took him to the races, the horse that I thought we should have got rid of already.”

Brian was stuck, committed to boarding and training this long shot to end all long shots. And this is not a wealthy family. Brian runs a small company. And Ohio racing, which is harness style racing, is a $900 million­a­year industry.

MJB Got Faith was so slow that it was barely even qualified to compete but then somehow won his first race, then his second, third and fourth qualifying him for the state championship held in Columbus, Ohio.

“And I said to my daughter, ‘If you finish third, you should be so thankful,’” Brian remembered. “She said, ‘Daddy, if he finishes last, I’m going to be thankful. But he’s going to win.’”

This little horse won an important match.

Her dad now has a racehorse whose name is Steve Hartman.

My dad and I had been looking forward to the Stale cross-country race of my senior year of high school, which would be the climax (顶点) of my existence.

I was the fastest runner on my team, and I was supposed to make it into the top fifteen. We had been working towards this race for three years. It was everything to me, and it was everything to my dad. He was a runner and was wild with joy by my success in running. He made it to every race, even flying home early from business trips to see me run. I always listened for his voice, which rang above the crowd-telling me to relax my arms, calling out my time. He pushed me. He cheered for me. He believed in me. We spent countless hours on the sandy canals of Arizona. Breathing in the dust of the desert, the blossoms of the orange trees, and the terrible smell of the dairy farm, we made our way across the city. We pounded miles and miles into our running shoes, marking with every step the path to greatness. It was a journey that was just ours. A dream passed on from one generation to the next.

Then the big day came. It was hotter than normal - too hot. My throat felt like a field of cotton, cracked with the summer heat, as I waited for the gun to fire. I gazed out at the crowd; dozens of familiar faces from church and school flickered across my view. They had come for me. They were counting on me. I saw my dad set his watch, worry and excitement etched across his face. With the sound of a gunshot, the race began.

For the first two and half miles, I felt great. I had never before been so ready for something. The weeks leading up to the race were filled with hard practices and a strict diet. The scorching sun beat upon my back, blinding me with its brilliance. Nothing was going to stop me, though.

However, without warning, my strength was running out.

I whispered, “I’m so sorry I disappointed you, Dad.”

The Save

Instantly Casey raised her hand, she feared she had made an awful mistake.

“OK,” Coach said. “Casey will be goalie (守门员) in the fourth quarter.”

Casey nodded uneasily. She had just joined the Eagles. Now she had volunteered to be goalie, a position that required confidence, which she lacked.

Casey swallowed hard when taking her turn in front of the goal for pre game warm-ups. The goal suddenly looked as big as a movie screen.

When Casey jogged over to her dad near the sidelines, she said quietly, “I cannot do it.”, blinking back tears. “Sure you can,” Dad encouraged her. “Just keep your head up and be aggressive (好斗的). You might surprise yourself.”

The game kicked off and Casey’s teammates scored three quick goals. Clearly, they were the better team mostly because their opponents’ best player was at a piano recital (演奏会). At halftime the Eagles led, 4 to 0. But then she noticed the Comets’ star, number 25 racing toward the field. The piano recital had ended.

Number 25 was flashing across the field, dribbling (带球) past defenders. She zipped past several players and kicked the ball hard into the goal. It was 4 to 1. Two minutes later, number 25 intercepted (拦截) a pass and weaved down (穿行) the field, controlling the ball as if it were tied to her foot. She scored again. It was 4 to 2.

Casey felt her stomach tighten. Soon she would be the one helplessly guarding the goal.

The whistle went. Number 25 scored a third time. The Eagles led by one goal.

“OK, Casey,” Coach said as the Eagles huddled up before the fourth quarter. “You go in goal.”

Casey stood in front of the net. She yelled for her teammates, who were dominating the game again. They hadn’t scored, but Casey hadn’t had to make any saves either. Number 25 appeared to be tired.

Casey’s heart raced whenever the ball came. But each time it was kicked away. Now there were two minutes left. “Hurry up,” Casey thought. “If I never have to touch the ball, we’ll win the game. I’ll never ...”

Suddenly number 25 had the ball and was racing up the side-line.

Casey backed quickly toward the net as number 25 sent another shot.