Fort Mill's Anna Kimbrell was absent from school for the first 10 days of classes, but it's safe to say she has as good an excuse as any.

Kimbrell, a senior at Nation Ford High School, has been in Japan as a member of Team USA, which defeated Australia 2-1 for the bronze medal last Friday.

She was the designated hitter in that game, going 0-3 at the plate. For the tournament, Kimbrell, who pitched two scoreless innings and got the save in an opening-round win over Chinese Taipei, was 2-1 with a 2.84 ERA.

She batted .400 with two hits in five trips to the plate.

Team USA's 11-1 third-round win over Australia gave the American women a 3-0 start. Kimbrell pitched in game four, a 7-6 loss to Team Canada. She went 4 1/3 innings allowing two earned runs and recording one strikeout. Team USA also gave up two unearned runs while Kimbrell was on the mound. She left the game with a no-decision.

That defeat was followed by a 9-5 loss to Japan, which knocked Team USA from gold medal contention.

Kimbrell, who made history last year as the first female to play varsity baseball at the high school level in the state of South Carolina, kept in touch with her mom Sandy by text message while winding her way around the world. Sandy Kimbrell left for Japan a few days later and got there in time to watch Anna play.

In one message, Anna texted her mom that, "[sic]: we are in seoul, korea it's raining like crazy flights have been canceled and delayed...better not cancel ours never seen rain this hard it's an 11 hr time difference thought I'd let you know we're here..headed to matsuyama at like 3 or something like that..gonna be a 3 hr flight..piece uh cake to korea i'm gonna go walk around the airport and take a nap..probably gettin a massage later too..see you when you get to japan this airport is sooooo nice..it's like a mall."

Before heading out to meet her daughter, Sandy got "an important" phone call from Anna:

"She had an important request for me to bring seeds, gum and her other pair of gray ball pants with me to Matsuyama; Priorities, I guess!" Sandy Kimbrell joked in an e-mail she sent from Matsuyama to the Fort Mill Times.

"She said she had talked to lots of kids at school on her MySpace account. Evidently, there are many good wishes for her and Team USA located there, too."

According to USAbaseball.com, Team Canada used three squeeze plays in its win over Team USA.