This will be twelve-year-old Sophia Maria Garcia’s best year ever: She’s trying out for the same championship softball team on which her sister played at her age, and she’s starting middle school. New school, new team, new Sophia!

But all does not go according to plan. Sophia doesn’t make the Waves softball team, and her best friend is suddenly more interested in boys than Sophia. As the middle school blues set in and her family is pulled in different directions, Sophia
must reach deep down and find a little UMPH—the difference between being good and great—to figure out her own place, on and off the field.

ESPN Major League Baseball analyst and two-time Olympic medalist Jessica Mendoza teams up with her sister Alana Mendoza Dusan for their first novel for young readers, based on their own childhood softball adventures.