Suffolk’s Megan Blythe and her USA Athletes International softball team went to Italy and effectively dominated the competition while also getting to soak up the sights and culture of the host country.

“We did very well,” Blythe said. “We ended up winning the whole tournament. We were undefeated while we were there, and we only had three runs scored on us the whole time.”

In five games, her USAAI team outscored its opponents 38-3 in the 2015 Tuscany Series softball tournament, which ran July 29 to Aug. 2 in Arezzo, Italy.

Understanding why her team was so successful, the squad’s coach, Amber Affholter, said, “I had a lot of older girls. Most of my girls were juniors and seniors in college.”

“That helps a lot because your knowledge about the game is so much greater, so it gives you a different attitude towards the game, as well,” said Blythe, a rising senior at the West Virginia University Institute of Technology.

But these experienced players needed to be able to work well together on short notice, too, and they did.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a group of girls who’ve never played together gel so well together,” Affholter said. “When they got on the field, there was communication, they talked, they knew each other, they got to know each other on the plane ride, and the day before we got to play, they all talked and hung out, and there was no cliques on our team.”

Asked what her favorite thing was about the whole experience, Blythe said, “Definitely meeting the girls.”

“All of us said that we were going to miss each other so much, and we had only known each other for nine days,” she continued. “I’ve never clicked with a group of girls as fast as I did with this team, and we worked so well together, even though we only practiced once before we played.”

Affholter said, “They just went out there, played their ‘A’ game and enjoyed playing ball out there.”

The opportunity was given to them by the USAAI, which has been participating in international competition since 1992. It originally provided overseas playing opportunities for baseball players. Currently, the organization supports a total of 15 different sports in 25 different nations.

Affholter, the coach at WVU Tech and a former USAAI player, was asked to coach the team this summer, and she selected her players, including Blythe.

Blythe, a former King’s Fork High School softball standout, was coming off of a junior season at WVU Tech in which she was disappointed with her performance, but Affholter saw her return to form in Italy.

“She was more laid back, she was at ease, she wasn’t as nervous,” the coach said. “I thought she played the game much better this time around than she did last year.”

Blythe said, “I started off a little rough because it was very hard for me to adjust to the pitching there.”

Among the various differences in the way the game is played in Italy compared to America is that pitches are slower.

“So, I struggled with that for a few games, but after I got used to it, I got back on my game,” Blythe said.

Affholter said, “I don’t have her official stats, but I believe she hit around .300 the whole week, and she had an in-the-park home run, as well.”

During the tourney, Blythe and company faced two Italian teams, two other American teams and a squad from Holland, which Affholter said provided the biggest challenge.

The coach and her team also did plenty of sightseeing

“We visited Florence, we visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa, we went to the Colosseum, the Vatican, we went to the Tyrrhenian Sea,” Affholter said. “We got to do a lot.”

Blythe noted, “All of Italy wasn’t the typical thing that you would think Italy is with the small streets and the ancient buildings. A lot of it was farms and grasslands and open areas. So it was very culturally eye-opening.”