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During her days at Eleanor Roosevelt High School and Prince George's Community College, Greenbelt resident Amanda King excelled on the soccer field and the softball diamond. On Tuesday evening in the Prince George's Women's Fast-Pitch Softball League at Fairland Regional Park Laurel, she managed to combine the two sports while playing shortstop for the Fighting Squirrels.

Like many of the softball players who compete in the league each Tuesday evening, King heads straight from work to the field, and in her haste to arrive on time this week, she didn't have her softball cleats with her and instead was forced to wear her soccer cleats. She needed a few innings to get adjusted to the footing in the field and at the plate, but King was error-free in eight chances at shortstop and helped the Fighting Squirrels down the winless Takoma Fire, 5-3 and

9-1, for their first two wins of the season.

"It took a little bit of adjusting, but overall it felt OK," said King, who will attend Towson University this fall. "I work at Camp Pine Tree in Greenbelt all day and then come straight here, so sometimes I forget something, and tonight it was my softball cleats. But I still love playing softball. I'm hoping to play for the club team at Towson because they travel and that will be really fun. I've had to fight through some minor ankle injuries from soccer, but I still love playing softball."

In the first game, King went 1 for 3 with a run-scoring single in the sixth inning that brought home recent Bowie High graduate Skylar McBarnette to give the Fighting Squirrels a 5-3 lead. King then made a diving catch behind the pitcher's circle to end the game and preserve the victory for former Owls' teammate and rising PGCC sophomore Sarah Bednarik. In the second game, King singled and scored in the Squirrels' seven-run first inning.

"She's the best player on the team," Fighting Squirrels' coach John Swieczkowski said of King. "She's a great athlete. She made an amazing catch [July 13] against the Storm. I still don't know how she got to that ball before it went out of play. She's a good kid and a heck of an athlete. I hope she continues to play at Towson, even if it's just club ball."

"Amanda could play softball or soccer at a very high level," Miller said. "We were so excited to get her at PGCC for those two years, because she had such raw athleticism. I had always seen her play third base at Roosevelt, so I didn't know how well she would adapt to shortstop. But she's such a quick learner that she picked it up right away. We worked on her hitting mechanics, and I doubt she struck out more than four times in the two years that I had her. I'm glad to see that she's still playing because she loves the game and she does everything really well."

PGCC softball coach Melissa Miller was on hand Tuesday to watch King and several of her other former players who are members of the Fighting Squirrels. King, Taylor, Mary Miller and Katryna Fernandez each singled and scored in the Flying Squirrels' seven-run first inning in the second game. Aryn Johnston, a 2010 Gazette-Star All-County First Team selection as a first baseman at Bowie High, pitched the second game and hit an RBI single.

E-mail Ted Black at tblack@gazette.net.