English to Italian Art/Literary Other sport

Salve, sto traducendo un romanzo in cui c'è una scena che credo sia di softball o baseball. Si parla di due bambine, la scena è questa:

We were eight years old, in third grade, each of us the only girls on our respective Little League teams. It was the playoffs. I was catching for the Yankees. Mash was batting cleanup for the Braves. In the bottom of the ninth, Masha drove the ball to the center field fence. She was rounding third when our shortstop threw the relay to me. Masha charged the plate. I held my ground. We collided [...].

Ho più o meno capito tutto a parte il "charge the plate". L'ho trovato su un dizionario di baseball monolingue ma non conoscendo il gioco non mi aiuta molto.