Softball: Bolingbrook’s Karina Choi to play for Team Taiwan in Triple Crown International Challenge

For the remainder of the spring, Karina Choi will continue to be the sparkplug at the top of the Bolingbrook softball team’s lineup.

After that, though, she will take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime.

Choi, a junior center fielder for the Raiders who hit .308 with an on-base percentage of .419 and 15 stolen bases last season, has been selected to play for Team Taiwan in this summer’s Triple Crown International Challenge in Westminster, Colorado. The event will take place June 28-30.

Choi was selected after a screening process that involved submitting game tapes. She is eligible because her father, Jimmy Choi, was born and spent the first 10 years of his life in Taiwan before coming to the United States.

This will be the fourth year of the Triple Crown International Challenge. The event was created to allow top U.S.-born players to play for their heritage and showcase their talents in hopes of being seen by national Olympic teams. Any chosen player born in the US with ties to another country is eligible. There are different divisions, and not all countries are represented, though Triple Crown International plans to continue to grow and add more countries each year.

Countries that will be represented this year will be Africa, Canada, Central America, Chinese Taipei/Taiwan, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Philippines, Polynesia, Puerto Rico, South America, South Korea, Spain and the United States.

Players must meet one of the following criteria to be selected to play in the challenge: The player is born in the country she wants to represent, the player has a parent, grandparent or great-grandparent born in the country she wants to represent, and, for Israel only, it is based on that player’s Jewish faith.

“I had to apply online and submit videos of me playing,” Choi said. “The coaches looked at the videos and picked a group of 12 to 18 girls. It’s a big honor to be selected.

“I haven’t been able to visit Taiwan. We are working on it. It’s definitely one of my biggest wishes.”

Not only does Choi have the international competition to look forward to this summer, but she also has already committed to a college – California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, otherwise known as Cal-Poly.

“I am really happy to have that decision made,” Choi said about her college choice. “I don’t need to worry about any of the recruiting or anything for the rest of my high school career. I can just go out and play.

“I would like to study kinesiology and stay close to sports in some way,” she said.

It will be a quick turnaround for Choi and her teammates once they arrive in Colorado.

“I won’t meet my teammates until I get out there,” she said. “We will get there, have one practice together, and then start playing. It starts on June 28 and lasts about six days, so we should be there for the Fourth of July. That will be fun.

“I am excited for it.”