Softball isn’t the only thing this young national champion team may see in KC
Off the field and outside of practice, the girls on Brian Carr’s 11U — meaning age 11 and under — “Hotshots Naudin National 2013” softball team are constantly honing their skills. Whether it’s hitting, pitching or defense, most players, he says, are spending four days a week taking initiative to practice on their own.
The time spent practicing is just one example of a team Carr describes as “incredibly hardworking.”
“They’re the kind of group of kids grabbing a bucket ... or asking parents for a ride to a D-BAT (softball training facility) or, you know, to a lesson somewhere,” Carr said, “so that they are confident that they’re going to be in a good position or place to contribute to their team when it matters with the highly competitive schedule that we carry.”
And that “highly competitive schedule” is often laced with both local and national events for the coach-described “highly competitive” Texas athletes, who have “rose to be the most competitive in our area.”
The Hotshots came out on top last July in the USSSA Southern National Championship for the 10U division and later took third in their division at the Premier Girls Fastpitch National Tournament, a prestigious youth softball event which pulls from multiple regions across the country.
The USSSA Southern champs now compete in the 12U division as a first-year team, which means while they may compete against those in their own age group (11U), they also frequently come into contact with their second-year 12U counterparts.
In May, the Hotshots went 6-0 at the 12U Battle of DFW event in their home state and took home the 12U A team division’s 2025 state championship title.
“Most of the competition we face when we play in higher-level events is going to be against the second-year teams, and that’s what we look for to really push ourselves,” Carr said. “And some of the big-time tournaments have 11U divisions, and we do take advantage of that so we can see the best of the best in our age group. But primarily we’re playing (our) first-year team against second-year teams.”
And they’ll do just that as they compete in Kansas City’s annual Top Gun Invitational for the first time.
It’s the ‘best of the best’
The Top Gun Invitational is a nationally recognized elite softball tournament and college recruiting event.
This year, more than 300 teams from 31 states are expected to compete over a four-day period across eight facilities in the Kansas City area. The event will see over 4,000 athletes across the 12U to 18U age divisions.
Carr says it’s that nationwide pool that bring his team to Kansas City — and the coaching philosophy that “failure is fuel.”
“There’s going to be some failure, and with that failure, you know, really kind of develops the drive to not repeat that to the extent that it’s humanly possible,” Carr said. “That’s pretty core to the philosophy. It’s why we, from the very beginning, have always traveled a little bit more local in the beginning, a bit more, you know, nationwide now, so that we can test ourselves against the best of the best.”
Kansas City offers the Southern Region national champs the chance to see competition from “excellent programs” all across the country, Carr said, and the tournament has been on the team’s radar since the start of the season. While the 11U team is “there to win the competition,” the players also hope to learn and improve through the challenges they’ll face in the event’s second-year 12U division.
“They will, as they always do, learn from the experience, learn from the failures, team or individual, and that will be the language they speak to go back to lessons,” Carr said. “If it’s a pitcher who wasn’t able to execute a certain thing, that information is translated to their pitching coaches, to the work they do at home. Same with the disciplines of hitting and fielding, they’ll look at those things ... and they’ll look as much at the positives to be the reinforcement.”
It’s all about figuring out, Carr said, “where they need to spend time and focus and energy, so the next event — the outcome can be better.”
An ‘adventurous’ crew
Outside of the competition they will face at Top Gun Invitational, the young Hotshots’ plans for their stay in Kansas City are up in the air. They’re “seeing where the road takes (them),” says Carr, who wants the players to have memories both on and off the field.
“We do try to understand what the area can provide from an experience perspective for our players so that the memories are twofold, right? It’s, you know, something about the area in Kansas and certainly other memories about the tournament and competition,” he said.
Once the Hotshots come to understand the weekend’s schedule, their plans away from the tournament will become more clear. But caves may be in the future for this “pizza-eating team,” says Carr, which would be a foreign experience for the Texans.
“We don’t have any caves out this way, and I remember spending some time in Kansas in the past and going down into caves,” he said. “Our team is very adventurous, so things like that would excite them very much as it would be a new experience.”
After closing out their weekend in Kansas City, the Hotshots will head to two more high-level elite softball tournaments, including the PGF Diamond Legacy Summer Championship in Wichita.
