Remember the poor young lady from the University of Florida, who stood in the batter’s box the other night with the tying run on second base against the Washington Huskies in the Women’s College World Series?

National Player of the Year Danielle Lawrie was dealing 68-mph fastballs from a mere 43 feet away. That’s like a baseball pitcher throwing 103 from a mound.

One-oh-three. “Star Trek” nerds call that WARP speed.

A national television audience was watching. Her teammates wore silly rally caps.

There it is. Deliver the goods or your team is yesterday’s toast.

An old Billy Joel song started bouncing around in my brain:

“I’m sure you’ll have some cosmic rationale

But here you are in the ninth

Two men out and three men on

Nowhere to look but inside

Where we all respond to …

Pressure!”

It didn’t go so well for little Miss Gator. A strike-three whiff and the Huskies were softball champions.

From the ESPN camera shots of the losing team, it appeared that the strikeout victim was weeping uncontrollably.

I guess that’s what I admire most about high-level athletes who dare to enter the arena, no matter the sport. It’s their willingness to put it all out there, knowing that failure is a very real possibility.

How much pressure do you feel during your daily routine?

For me, merely paying a visit to the Longview post office creates pressure. It seems that whenever I wait in line for stamps or to ship something, the same two postal employees are at the counter.

The nice guy.

And, well, the “other” guy.

Rewind two weeks ago. My stomach starts to rumble. I’m reasonably sure it’s not the mid-morning Fruit Loops playing tricks on me. I’m fidgeting like a first-grader about to get his tonsils yanked.

A woman in a blue dress is ahead of me. She gets the nice guy.

Make it fast, lady! Move it along!

The nice guy goes in search of a package. My fate is sealed. It’s all over now.

“You’ve only had to run so far

Pressure!

But you will come to a place

Where the only thing you feel

Are loaded guns in your face

And you’ll have to deal with …

Pressure!”

I am summoned to the counter. My heart is racing. Will I drive one to the fence or strike out yet again?

“I need to do one of those … uh … express delivery packages or … uh … priority delivery things,” I mutter nervously.

Postal guy: “So which is it?”

“Uh, well, I don’t know. I guess the one that gets there in three days, whatever it’s called.”

Postal guy: “That would be the express. Over there. On the wall. Fill it out and come back.”

As I fumble for the correct label, my pal continues to bark instructions while my fellow citizens in line marvel at how shockingly stupid I am.

Postal guy: “Not THAT one! To the left, to the left. See it? It’s right in front of you.”

This is the same gentleman who a few months earlier patronized an elderly woman at the counter because she didn’t get online first to check on her package.

After telling him she didn’t own a computer, the lady exited with an angry look on her face.

“It’s always the old ones,” he said with a sigh when I approached the counter.

Pressure comes spray-painted in many different colors. It’s the pressure of your job, your family, your addictions. It’s whether you have enough money to feed your children or, in some cases, your pet.

Those pressures are genuine. They keep you awake at night.

For athletes, especially ones who make millions to play a kid’s game, the pressures are different.

They are expected to perform first and ask questions later. It’s the legends — the Michael Jordans, the Tom Bradys, the Reggie Jacksons — who welcome the heat and typically thrive in it.

If the Kelso High School fastpitch softball team was feeling pressure prior to last week’s Class 4A state tournament in Tacoma, it wasn’t showing it.

My guess? Probably not.

Kelso coach Mike McMahon, a pretty cool customer himself, brought his team north and basically told them to leave it all out there in the dirt.

Translation: Play hard and see where it gets you.

Many perfectly talented high school teams change their stripes when they reach the big stage of a state tournament. They melt under the pressure like a chocolate bar trapped in the pocket of a corduroy suit.

But McMahon’s Lassies didn’t succumb to it. They took their game to another level, shifted into another gear and mowed down four straight opponents to wrap up the championship.

Nice work, ladies.

Maybe Billy Joel should write a song about you.