RIMERSBURG — All her life, Kara McCall has wanted to play baseball.

Now she has a chance to play for her country.

A 2005 Union graduate and former member of the Golden Knights baseball team, McCall is flying to Los Angeles, Calif., Saturday morning to try out for the United States women's baseball team.

She is one of 30 women invited to the tryout. USABaseball is picking up the expense of bringing these women to L.A. and will select an 18-player team after three days of workouts.

McCall is a pitcher-middle infielder.

"I don't even know where my love for baseball started,"McCall, 21, said. "I've been playing the game since I was little and always held my own playing with the guys."

McCall pitched in a handful of games for Union's varsity baseball team and saw limited action at second base before leaving the program her senior year.

Union does not have a girls fastpitch softball team and McCall has never played softball.

"It just didn't work out," she said of her high school baseball career. "A lot of the guys were OKwith me playing, but some didn't want me there. Sometimes, when I pitched, they made errors on purpose."

McCall said she considered trying to play fastpitch softball for Redbank Valley's high school team, but her own school wouldn't permit it.

"I didn't try to fight it," she said. "I never really wanted to play softball, anyway."

McCall went on to attend Clarion University and works part time as a nurse at the DuBois Regional Medical Center.

She never tried playing baseball or softball in college, but never gave up on baseball. Through the Internet, she discovered a women's baseball weekend tournament team in Canada and played for that squad in 2006.

The past two years, she's played for a women's traveling team based in the state of Washington. McCall has played tournaments in Baltimore (Md.), Orlando (Fla.), Fort Myers (Fla.), Las Vegas (Nev.), Kenosha (Wisc.) and Hong Kong over the past two years.

She's paid her own expenses to all of those events. Her team has never won a tournament, "but we've come in second a bunch of times," she said.

McCall has also taken baseball lessons from Jay Fennell's Nothing But Baseball organization in Butler Township.

"I've had some younger girls come in here, but no one as old as her,"Fennell said. "Kara has really improved over the past year.

"Her fastball is in the low 70's and that's pretty good speed."

McCall recently pitched 12 innings in a game, throwing more than 170 pitches.

She was one of the women selected for the national tryout out of 70 who attended a regional tryout in Wisconsin.

Of the 30 women selected for the national tryout, 16 are either from California or down south. Nineteen of the women are pitchers.

"They're pushing to make women's baseball an Olympic sport and the 18 girls picked this weekend would be the U.S. team,"McCall said. "My immediate goal is to make that team.

"This is a big step for women's baseball."

McCall is the only girl from Pennsylvania invited to the national tryout. The 18 women selected will play a three-game exhibition series against Canada next week, then fly to Japan to compete in the Women's Baseball World Cup Aug. 23-29.

The United States will play teams from China, India and Australia in World Cup competition.

"I've played every position but catcher in baseball,"McCall said. "The game is much slower, playing with women compared to guys, but it's still baseball."

McCall estimates there are 20 women's baseball teams in the United States.

"It's a tremendous honor she's gotten invited to go out there,"Fennell said. "Kara is very serious about baseball. I'm pulling for her."