Championship softball team returns to NJ

The champions of the Little League softball World Series are back in the Garden State, after defeating a team from Louisana, 4-1 in the title game Wednesday evening.

The Robbinsville girls softball team arrived back home as hundreds of family members, friends and neighbors waved and cheered.

One of the first girls off the bus was 13-year-old Mackenzie Medders, the team pitcher, who said "it was really exciting knowing we won the tournament, it was a very emotional time because we all wanted to win really bad."

Medders said the team has worked hard and become very close.

"We practice a lot and we work really hard at practice, so that it's like repetition," she said. "We're all like a big family and we love each other."

Third baseman Alexa Petito, 13, couldn't stop smiling.

"We're really happy for all the support that our town gave us throughout the journey, and we just worked really hard," she said

The team's catcher, 12-year-old Shea Walsh, said the tournament was thrilling.

"It was a really cool experience, and to play teams from all over the world is really cool," she said. "It just showed how good we are as a team, how hard we worked."

The Robbinsville manager, Mark Walsh is proud of what his team has accomplished.

"I'm super excited for the girls, they've worked hard for this, and like I've told many people, I was the lucky one that was able to share this with them," Walsh said.

He believes their secret formula for winning was hard work and good timing.

"Winning softball games isn't easy," he said. "We play good defense, we pitch pretty good and we hit the ball when we need to hit the ball. It's a great group of girls from a great town that played softball the right way."