Saturday, May 17 — I knew today would be a rough day when I was overcharged $2 for a drink I didn't order.

I argued to get my $2 back for five minutes before we had to leave for the field. When we got to the field and stepped out of the vans, I already felt like I had just ran a mile. I broke a sweat standing there in the mid-90 degree heat.

We played Arizona State today at 2 in the afternoon. The sun was directly above us and we had to take water breaks every 20 minutes to keep ourselves hydrated. As I looked across the field, several of the opposing players were dressed in not only pants, but had long sleeve Under Amour under their jerseys as well, while our team, across the field, was trying to wear as little as possible.

Maybe they could tell we were so hot that they shortened the game and finished us off in six innings.

Coming into the game today we had several people who had dreamed of how the game would be. Malama (Manuma) had a dream two days ago that we were playing little devils — Arizona State "Sun Devils." Kristi (Yoshizawa), our assistant coach, had a dream we were winning 4 or 5-0 and in the last inning, dreamt the ball went under one of our infielder's legs and then past our outfielders, but we still won. This is how involved we are in softball. Not only do we practice it, and play it, but we also dream about it, literally.

After the game we went back to the hotel to rest up and cool down. There was some confusion on whether we had to change our jerseys or not. So we didn't. When we went downstairs in the lobby to meet for our second game, our coach asked us, "Why would you want to wear those jerseys again? You just got a shellacking in them!!! And you want to wear them again?!?! Get those things off you!"

So we rushed back to our rooms to change into our black jerseys and headed off to the field. When we got to the field, we were told we had to wear our light colored jerseys, a.k.a. our shellacking jerseys, because we were the home team.

One of our coaches had to go back to the hotel to each of the player's rooms and gather all the uniforms while we were warming up. So we were on the field warming up with half the team in white jerseys, and half the team in black jerseys — we looked like a confused team.

But we finally got ourselves together and were able to win over Mississippi State tonight. We hit four home runs in our final game of the evening. Must have been the jerseys.

Rainbow Wahine Kate Robinson is writing a diary during the NCAA Tournament softball regional in Tempe, Ariz.