Opportunities often come with an expiration date.

Passion for the game knows no such bounds.

So when the chance to rekindle a seemingly bygone relationship with baseball arose, well, Jessica Iwata just couldn’t pass it up.

“I guess I’m living old dreams right now,” Iwata said.

Three years after completing one of the University of Hawaii softball program’s most prolific careers, Iwata is back on the diamond — although a larger one this time — with the USA Baseball Women’s National Team.

Iwata played youth baseball into her freshman year at Kauai High School before transitioning to softball and went on to excel with the Red Raiders and again in college with the Rainbow Wahine.

She had settled into coaching when an unexpected opportunity prompted her to take another swing at baseball this summer. She made it through two rounds of tryouts to make the 20-player U.S. roster for the World Baseball Softball Confederation Women’s Baseball World Cup in Gijang, South Korea.

The team left for Korea on Wednesday to play in the 12-team, eight-day tournament, which opened Friday with the second-ranked U.S. defeating Hong Kong 9-1. Iwata flied out to center as a pinch hitter. Japan enters the event, held every two years, as the four-time defending champion.

“This is my first time ever using my passport, so it’s pretty exciting,” Iwata said in a phone interview from Fullerton, Calif., during a break in training.

“It’s a whole new experience for me again,” she said. “I was a little bit overwhelmed, but all in all I’m having fun and playing for something bigger than just baseball.”

Her journey began on the youth diamonds on Kauai, where Iwata played PONY baseball into her freshman year of high school. She tried out for the Red Raider baseball team that year, but didn’t make the cut and softball became her focus.

“I actually owe all of my fundamentals to baseball because that’s all I played when I was growing up,” Iwata said. “Playing with the boys I think made me more competitive and it made me push myself to try harder to be better because oftentimes I was the only girl.”

The power-hitting shortstop helped lead Kauai to the Division II state championship in 2009 before embarking on a record-setting UH career highlighted by three appearances in the NCAA regionals and a trip to the Women’s College World Series.

She remains UH’s career leader in RBIs and ranks second in hits, doubles and home runs and started every game as a senior despite playing through a shoulder injury. She had surgery after the 2013 season and the prescribed recovery period of 12 to 18 months took professional softball out of play, but she remained connected to the game as an assistant coach at Kamehameha.

“I was comfortable,” Iwata said. “I was OK not going any further with it and I was happy with what I accomplished thus far.”

This spring an e-mail arrived at the UH softball office from Ashley Bratcher, director of the women’s national team. The UH coaches forwarded the inquiry to Iwata, who wavered over whether she’d be ready for the tryout with about six weeks to prepare.

She gave it a shot and worked with former UH pitcher Harrison Kuroda on rebuilding her arm strength and dusting off her pitching motion.

“He spent a lot of time with me trying to get my arm in shape doing pitching drills,” Iwata said. “So I owe a lot of it to him.”

She paid her own way to the Women’s National Open in Cary, N.C., in mid-June and earned an invitation back to the Women’s National Team Trials at Cal State Fullerton in August. She tried out as a third baseman and pitcher and made the travel list for the trip to Korea.

On the national team, Iwata bonded with players with similar backgrounds in baseball and softball and their mission stretches beyond a quest for gold.

“This national team and these girls on this team they really make you realize they’re trying to make a difference and they’re trying to make women’s baseball bigger,” Iwata said.

“Some are still in college playing softball. … They’re not trying to push softball aside, but it’s just giving girls more options.

“For Hawaii girls back home, as long as I’m contributing to opening up doors for them, if me going to this is going to help them work harder, that’s all I can really ask.”