By Shannon Heaton

Eight-year-old Alannah Crompton of Moline looked in toward home plate, took a deep breath and threw.

Then, just as her pro partner, ProFastpitch Xtreme softball player Meagan Denny, had done three times before, Crompton knocked down a black bucket standing on top of two sets of white buckets.

Together, one of the strongest softball pitchers in the United States — and a young hopeful just beginning to find her feet in the sport, won a pitching skills challenge, one of two skills challenge events held during the middle of Saturday’s PFX Tour stop at Moline’s Green Valley Park.

“I wanted Lisa Fernandez, but she was already picked, so I picked Meagan,” Alannah said. “She does pitch fast. I was kind of scared when her arm went back. It looked like the ball would hit me. (But) I felt pretty good (to win the challenge).”

That’s exactly what Denny, her PFX Tour teammates and Tour co-founders Tom McCarthy and Olympic softball legend Dot Richardson are hoping for in the Tour’s third season — to bring Olympic-sized softball dreams to girls all over the United States.

“She was a little nervous, so I tried to pump her up, and she did phenomenally,” Denny said of Crompton. “We’re all doing what we can to build up the game. We’ve given everything we have to the sport, we’re still very competitive.”

“Their impact in the marketplace has created opportunities for women in sports, that didn’t exist before,” McCarthy said of the impact USA softball has had at all levels of girls and women’s sports.

“The question was what we could do to bring younger players the game, as opposed to a (professional) league situation. So we said, let’s go to them, and now we’re in our third year of doing it.”

The Tour was a bit truncated this year, in comparison to its schedule in 2006 and 2007, because of the presence of the Beijing Summer Olympics, but managed to put together eight stops. From Moline, it moves to Chattanooga, Tenn., in two weeks, with two more stops on the docket in California and Florida before Thanksgiving.

“I did play one year in a league, but I love this. It’s my third year here. There is the competition and there’s great players here, but I love the fact that I can be walking into the park and have time to say hi or take pictures with the fans,” two-time Olympian Tairia Flowers said.

Or, she can win a hitting skills challenge with 14-year-old Muscatine resident Megan Butler. Butler and Flowers edged out three other teams — with Flowers stating that Butler, an eighth-grader at Muscatine Middle School, did most of the work.

“It was a really good experience, kind of exciting. I kind of felt special talking to her,” Butler said. “She (Flowers) said to take a pitch, to see the speed so I could have all three chances (to hit). You’re nervous, you never know if they (the Tour players) are going to be watching you.”

McCarthy said that a tentative Labor Day weekend date for 2009 had been agreed upon between Tour officials and Moline parks staff, but plans have not been finalized.

If they are, and a return visit happens next year, and Tour player Tina Boutelle comes back, count on her No. 1 fan — 13-year-old Anne Bentley of Durant — to be one of several hundred Tour weekend attendees, if this year’s turnout is any indicator.

“(Friday night), they played, and me and my friends were standing out in left field and started cheering for her. She came over and gave us a high-five, and I got a shirt with her name on it,” said Bentley, who wore the shirt during the hitting skills challenge.

“All this morning, we were with her. It was shocking (during the skills challenge), just to be out there with all those big players.”