Brentt Eads of Line Drive Softball here…

At the end of every year, we review all our articles we’ve published — typically it’s over 1,000 annually! — and come up with our “Top 10 Stories of the Year.”

Well, we may have more than two months to go in 2025, but we already know what one of them will be—it will be the one we’re presenting today!

Almost nine years ago to the week, a young 8-year-old named Ava Tapia was early in her softball career but was fortunate to be able to interview legendary UCLA player and current coach Lisa Fernandez for a school project.

The genesis of the story begins at a UCLA home football game.

“We were trying to get a picture of Ava with Lisa and we wanted to try and ask her if she’d let Ava interview her for her school project,” the athlete’s father, Eric Tapia, recalls.

“Ava and I tried to get down closer to try and talk to Lisa and the security guard got Lisa’s attention for us. Coach Lisa was so cool, she told the security guard to let us come down to be closer to her.”

“We got down on the field and asked Lisa about the project. Without hesitation, she agreed – we just had to figure out the logistics.   Ava then asked for a picture and she got to wear Lisa’s Gold medals. Who does that? She was so humble and friendly!”

Eventually, the elementary school student-athlete was able to travel to Westwood and sit down for an interview and even get to catch some pitches from the softball legend.

Ava and her family put together the clips and turned in one heck of an impressive video.

And, nearly a decade later, it was even prophetic.

“In that video, Ava said her dream was to play for UCLA one day… well it happened. Her dream has come true!”

That’s right, Ava—who almost a decade ago stated “on camera” that she wanted to play for the Bruins one day, made a trip to Westwood a little over a week ago and in a meeting with Head Coach Kelly Inouye-Perez and Coach Fernandez committed to UCLA.

Ava is a senior at Upland (Calif.) High and plays for Steve Appel’s Arizona Rising 18U team where she was announced last week as being in the 2026 HOT 100 final rankings as one of the top overall players in her class.

The high school senior’s had great successes in her fastpitch career both in travel ball with the Firecrackers and AZ Rising programs as well as internationally.

Previously, Ava competed on the U15 Mexico National Team that won a Pan Am Silver Medal and then on the U18 Mexico National Team that captured Bronze. This Summer (2025), the backstop helped the U18 finish in the Top 4 at the WBSC World Cup.

Carlos Caro, the Mexico U18 Head Coach, commented:

“Ava has performed on the biggest stages of softball nationally and internationally and when you ask pitchers who have played with her over the years, they all say the same thing: ‘I love when Ava catches for me. I want her to catch this game for me.’”

“She’s earned the respect and trust of her coaches and pitchers to be on the field in the biggest games and will continue to do so when she goes to college next year.”

And that will be at UCLA, showing that – with talent and hard work – dreams can come true… even for a third grader who dreams of one day playing for the college softball program that has won 12 NCAA national championships—the most in the sport’s history!

“I had dreamed of being a Bruin my whole life so this moment feels surreal,” Ava told Line Drive this weekend.

“It’s still kicking in that I’m actually going to be a Bruin!”

“If I told my younger self that my dream of becoming a Bruin was actually going to come true, she would freak out!”

Knowing that I’ll be a part of such an elite program and a part of a family who has the same goals as me is so special.”

Here is the school project where Ava interviewed an impressively accommodating Coach Lisa…

And, yes, the hard-working interviewer got a good grade for this tremendous effort: she even won medals for it and it went to the district level for the 2016 PTA Reflections Awards in the Visual Arts category!