Jess Bahn began playing softball for her local primary school at the age of 11. After winning the state titles, her friend encouraged her to join the local softball club, Glen Eira. In addition to playing every Saturday for Glen Eira, Jess was selected for numerous State development teams before being selected in her first state team Under 16s in 2008. Jess competed in 2 Under 16 national titles and 3 Under 19 national titles, were she captained Victoria in her final year. At the end of 2011, Jess travelled with the Junior Australian team to the World Championships in Cape Town, South Africa. The team narrowly lost to Chinese Taipei to finish fourth.

Jess was also selected into the Open Women's softball Squad "The Titans" at age 16 and travelled with the team to gain experience at the Open Women's level. At 23, Jess is now a resident member of the Titan's team. In 2014 Jess earned MVP for the Victorian team and was selected as a non-travelling reserve for the Australian Team. Whilst she didn't get the call to participate in the World Championships she gained valuable insighst into what it took to succeed at the International level. Jess has just returned from the Down Under Series in Sydney were she was a member of the athlete identification pathway. The team played the Aussie Spirit, Japan and New Zealand national teams. Jess hopes to gain selection into the Aussie Spirit Squad and work towards her goal of selection in the team for upcoming Worlds in 2018. Outside of softball Jess has just begun graduate studies in Medicine and lives in Geelong, Victoria.

We spoke about her career in softball, and the possibilities that lay ahead with softball now back in the Olympics for the 2020 games in Tokyo, what it would mean to her if she made the spirit squad that is heading to Japan in April this year.

Twitter: @SoftballVic

Web: http://vic.softball.org.au