Four years ago, Briana Mateo began playing softball at East Paulding Middle School; this summer, she’s playing in an international tournament for Puerto Rico.

A rising senior at Dominion Christian High School in Marietta, Mateo is the only Georgia player chosen for the 16-member Puerto Rico Junior National team competing in the Pan American Games in Bogota, Columbia, beginning Aug. 6. Puerto Rico will compete against Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Columbia, Equador, Canada, the United States, Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, Argentina and Guatemala in the Pan American Games in hopes of being among the top five teams qualifying for the ISF World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, next June.

Last summer, the Puerto Rican team won the bronze medal at the ISF World Cup in the Czech Republic.

Mateo was invited to try out for this year’s P.R. team in Florida. Players, their parents or grandparents must have lived on the island, and three of Mateo’s grandparents had.

She just returned from a week of practice games in Puerto Rico, playing 14 games for the 2010/2011 Puerto Rico Junior National fast pitch team, although “it rained the entire time,” she said.

“We played against the winning national team, which is preparing for the Central American Games, and got a chance to play with some amazing players,” said the young centerfielder. “We look pretty strong, and the pitching is just amazing for being a small island.”

Mateo has played softball only four years, beginning as a seventh- and eighth-grader at EPMS, but softball — and baseball — are huge in Puerto Rico, she said.

“It’s the No. 1 sport in Puerto Rico,” said Mateo. “Everybody plays or has a connection with the sport. The fields aren’t that good, but the players are so smooth. They take pride in what they do and have a different appreciation for the game.”

Mateo has also developed great appreciation for the game in four years. She first watched her brother play ball and then began practicing with her father, Jose. For the past three years, she’s played with the East Cobb Bullets.

“I fell in love with the game,” she said; “it’s almost become an obsession.”

Such that she’s been a catcher and centerfielder on the junior varsity boys baseball team at Dominion because the school doesn’t have a girls fast-pitch softball team.

Playing baseball with the boys “was different, but pretty fun,” she says. “It was hard getting used to throwing a smaller ball. A 65-mph softball is equal to college and pro pitching, and baseball was a totally different game. But I had a blast.”

Mateo enjoys photography, music, family and art, planning to major in art — and play softball — at either Savannah College of Art and Design, North Georgia College or Augusta State next year. In the meantime, she’ll be traveling internationally for the first time to play softball.

“I’m extremely excited; I’ve never been out of the country except to Puerto Rico,” she said.

And she’d like to play in the Olympics someday if softball is included again in the future.

Countries “are trying to raise up their junior teams and develop them,” she said. “If they bring back softball to the Olympics, these will be the national teams.”