'Really huge honor': Ponte Vedra's Aoife Weaver pitches Ireland softball to European medal

For a summer, Aoife Weaver changed up the colors for her softball routine.

Out, for just a little while: the Carolina blue and silver of Ponte Vedra Sharks softball. In: the green of Ireland.

A rising ace pitcher for Ponte Vedra on the First Coast, Weaver is lifting Ireland's competitive softball program to new heights, helping her national team to a best-ever third-place finish at August's European Under-18 championships in the Czech Republic.

"It's a really huge honor," she said. "It's just great to be able to play for the country, especially with my mom born there."

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How does a 15-year-old high school student miles from the Florida coast line up for a European junior softball championship nearly five thousand miles from home? The road from Ponte Vedra starts with Aoife's mother, Sharon Weaver, who was born in Dublin, and a few conversations with softball enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Stories like hers aren't unusual on the Irish roster, which consists mostly of American-born players with parents or grandparents from Ireland.

"I'm just incredibly proud and honored, and she's grown a lot physically and mentally in the sport," Sharon Weaver said. "I can see the pure joy."

FROM PONTE VEDRA TO DUBLIN

For a long time, Aoife didn't dream that softball would take her across the world. Then, friends on the travel softball circuit asked Sharon Weaver if Aoife was playing for Ireland's softball program — a team that she didn't know even existed at international level.

She began some research and connected with Softball Ireland, the national governing body. Once federation officials found out that Aoife was pitching in Florida and had an Irish passport, which qualified her to represent the national team, they arranged to evaluate her at a camp for American-born players with Irish roots.

They liked what they saw. Aoife got her first chance with Ireland's team at the Under-22 level in the summer of 2022, when she lined up as a 14-year-old against college-age opponents at a European tournament that was also held in the Czech Republic.

It wasn't her first time in Europe — she said that she's crossed the Atlantic multiple times in the past, often meeting with family in Ireland.

"They didn't promise her a lot of playing time," Sharon Weaver said. "But they said, 'We're preparing you for the Under-18s, because you'll be a starting pitcher. And it was the best thing they ever did for experience."

This summer, when the Under-18 team called, Aoife was already accustomed to the routine. She flew to Dublin first for a short training session along with her teammates — only four members of the team were born in Ireland, with most living in the United States — before arriving in Prague. By now, she said, the rhythm of the training routine was familiar: when to get up, when to get ready and how to adjust to tournament competition an ocean away from home.

"I knew fully what was going to happen, being ready and prepared from that previous camp," she said.

Then, the games began.

A SUPER SHARK

Originally, softball wasn't even her preferred sport.

At first, Aoife started in tennis, the sport where her older sister, Keelin — now in her senior year studying aerospace engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne — was a standout athletic performer at St. Joseph Academy.

But when Aoife decided that tennis just wasn't the right fit for her, her father, Stephen, suggested a sport she hadn't even heard of: softball.

"I'd never heard of it, never seen it. I'd heard of baseball but never softball," Aoife said. "He took me to that rec team and they had a little tryout going on, and something about it just made it my favorite thing to do."

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She began playing softball around age 9 with a St. Augustine recreational team, and since then, she's grown into a formidable force both in the circle and at the plate.

In her freshman season at Ponte Vedra, she batted .333 with nine doubles and two home runs. She also finished 6-1 in the circle with a 2.88 ERA as the Sharks splashed into the Florida High School Athletic Association Region 1-5A tournament.

In the short term, she's looking forward to a new season of travel softball with a Tampa-based club. Once the high school season kicks off, she's ready to step up into a larger role for the Sharks. Weaver split time with senior Sarah Wicker last year, but in 2024, she's on course to take over as the main returning pitcher.

"We did good last year winning districts, and I think we have a good chance to repeat it," she said.

LOOKING FORWARD TO 2024

In some ways, softball in Europe is just like softball in Florida. In some ways, it's not.

"It's like 20 countries, and you shake hands and exchange pins from your country," Weaver said. "And it's different because some of them don't speak English, so they'll nod their heads and just say, 'Good game.'"

Still, the language barrier didn't keep teams apart.

"We became good friends with the Swiss team," she said. "They're younger in age like our team is, and a lot of our girls were in the same hotel, so we would go see them and they would watch our games. There's a lot of support."

For most of her stay in the Czech Republic, she batted in the fourth or fifth slot in Ireland's batting order while seeing time at pitcher, outfield and first base.

She also got to make a memory in the bronze-medal game against the Netherlands. She said she was feeling disappointed after a tough at-bat earlier in the game, but she erased those doubts when she stepped up with a two-run deficit and cracked a game-tying two-RBI triple.

"That's what will always stand out to me," she said. "Just to know that even when you're down on yourself and you haven't done good previous at-bats earlier in the game, that doesn't mean anything for the rest of the game."

Her triple ended up helping Ireland to the 7-6 victory and the bronze medal — and more importantly, an automatic qualifying berth. A team that entered among the youngest in the European championship is now going to next year's World Cup for the U18 level, a breakthrough that could be significant for a national softball program that's still working to secure funding and sponsorships.

"It's a relatively new sport in Ireland," Sharon Weaver said. "I think this will put us on the map."

The WBSC has yet to designate a host for that tournament, which is tentatively scheduled for next July, although a South American country is expected to receive the selection.

Whatever the destination, though, Aoife Weaver is counting down the days to her next chance to take the field for Ireland against young players from around the world.

"I'm really excited," she said. "That's going to be intense."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ponte Vedra's Aoife Weaver pitches for Ireland national softball team