THE HISTORY OF THE NY Diamond Girls

The first Diamond Girls Softball team was started in 1990 as a group of 12 year olds from the West Seneca Girls Softball League and were named the Raiders the first year. The Raiders finished in 3rd place in the Niagara Frontier Girls Fastpitch 14-u travel league that year. Being the first local youth team to switch to shorts as their uniform in the WNY area, the girls were hesitant to slide in them. In the first half of the year, they would put sweatpants on when they went to bat, by the middle of the season they abandoned the sweats and got used to playing and sliding in shorts. The team became independent of the town league and the team name was changed to the Diamond Girls which won out over such names as; Lady Bugs, Travelers, and Wildcats. They also changed their team colors from Black,Orange and White, to Jade,Orange,White and Black. They wore the dreaded Miami Dolphins colors and received quite a few comments from other teams, when they went to out of town tournaments. The teams couldn’t believe a team from Buffalo wearing Miami colors. The team that year entered their first out of town tournament in Horseheads, NY. In 1993, the team became the first in the area to start practicing during the winter indoors. They rented out the Buffalo State College Bubble and practiced indoors, even playing a game inside the bubble. This allowed the team to be in shape for the high school season and for our summer season. From that group of players, over $300,000 was earned in athletic scholarships.

                  In 2005, the "New Era" was added to our name. Ray Hennesssy, Chris Swiatek and Jim Smith became the modern day Diamond Girls organization.  In 2007, The Diamond Girls were about to get bigger and stronger as area players and coaches grew increasingly frustrated with the current town programs and lack of flexibility they would have in developing their programs to allow girls to pursue higher levels of competition. With that said, the Diamond Girls welcomed several new coaches and players to the program. We added at first year 14U, Second Year 12U. The Diamond Girls became one of the best organizations in the area.