Time to say THANK YOU! To the special girls and coaches that helped put the IL Southern Force on the map 10 years ago this week by winning the 2004 ASA Gold National Championship. (warning LONG read!) Because of these special athletes my career path and even the lives of my family were altered and effected in many special ways. Each player was so talented and so unique in so many unique individual forms and as a team, they became even more special. In fact, as I look backwards, with the experience of now having coached in the SEC and in the NPF, these girls talents were beyond what I could fully appreciate and understand at the time. So for that I apologize to them. I knew they were special, as I drug them all over the United States, and even to Canada! But I honestly did not have the experience to realize just how good and just how special they actually were! For that I apologize and will always have regrets. Kisten Martin, 1B, Vienna, IL; Shanna Diller, 3B, Normal, IL; Colleen McGlauglin, SS/U, Peoria, IL; Krystal Stein, Nashville, IL, CF; Chelsea Petty, Pinckneyville, IL IF/OF; Kasi Carroll, P, Norris City, IL; Katie Wagner, SS/C/U, Mt Vernon, IL ; Erin Glasco, C, Johnston City, IL ; Kacey Coonce, 2B/P, Goreville, IL were the original members of the 2004 team. Scott Wagner was my assistant coach that year, and was so key in helping with critical decisions and molding the girls to become fierce competitors. Dr. Tom Diller also was amazing in his support of the team and helped as a coach when he could be there. Toni Whitfield, CF and Candice Carter, OF from Johnston City, IL; Heather Robertson, P, Creal Springs, IL and Brianna Moeller, P, Nashville, IL; all joined the team for Gold Nationals to give us depth as we had went to the 2003 Gold Nationals with only 9 players and realized we needed a substitute available in case of injury! Also, I have to give great credit to two girls that although they were older, and not eligible to play in 2004, both Alicia DeShasier (Carrolton, IL) and Erin James (Charleston, IL) made a huge impact on many of these girls and were a key part of why they won even after Alicia and Erin were gone from the roster. Likewise, Dave DeShasier, Alicias dad was an assistant coach in 2003 and had major influence on all these girls. While it is difficult to imagine that it was 10 years ago this week that the girls on the 18U Southern Force Gold gave their team and coaches the greatest gift they could give, a championship. And not just any championship, the ASA Gold Championship! For my family, as a coach, this changed our lives forever, although at the time, I had no idea. 2004 was a different era in softball. The PGF was not here yet. Softball in the Olympics was going strong. And virtually every college coach in the country was still recruiting 18U Gold and at the tournament each year. There was only one true National Championship, the ASA Gold Nationals held each year in a different location. And every top team and program was there if they could get a qualifying berth. The ASA system was not perfect, far from it, taking full advantage of the coaches and teams that were competing at the time. Kids played at all hours, often too many games, in poor locations, with often unorganized and many uncommitted and unknowledgeable people running the system. This is part of what led to the now powerful PGF National Championships, put together by great coaches like Dan Hay, Gary Haning, Tony Rico, Bruce Richardson, Marty Tyson, and many more. Playing in beautiful Huntington Beach, where the temperature is nice, humidity is low, is far different than St. Louis, MO Broken Arrow, OK or Marietta, GA. The great teams in 2004 that I recall were the O.C. Batbusters, Gordons Panthers, SoCal As, American Pastime, Tulsa Eagles, Texas Impact Gold, TX Sudden Impact, Cal Cruisers, VA Shamrocks, GC Hurricanes, Victory USA, the Corona Angels and Worth Firecrackers, and some more I am leaving out. However, there was no dilution of talent with every teams goal being to go to ASA Gold Nationals, and only 64 teams qualified each year. Which made it correlate to the travel ball equivalent of the NCAA softball championships. I had started the Southern Force in order to help the local girls in our small town high schools get scholarships and get in front of the NCAA coaches that were recruiting the major ASA tournaments at the time. I had no vision of the Southern Force winning a national championship and no one in Illinois at that time would have thought it possible. Even our ASA Illinois State director gave absolutely no support or encouragement before or after we started the Force team and program. After all only one non California team had ever won the Gold National Championship (the TX Katy Cruisers) at the time and they had a great young pitcher named Cat Osterman in the circle to do it! My only goal at the formation of the Southern Force was to compete against the very best teams in the country and felt that we would win a few and definitely lose a few. I also believed the top athletes in the small towns from any where could win if they were given a chance. And in that moment in time, from 2002 to 2004, this group of small town girls played together as a team and became one of the top teams in the nation. By finishing 13th in 2002 at ASA Gold Nationals in Broken Arrow, OK, when most of the girls were only 15 and 16 years old, winning the Canada Cup Futures in 2003 behind Kasi Carrolls brilliant pitching and a Kisten Martin walk off home run in the Championship over the Canadian Jr National team 1-0, and finishing 7th in the then very prestigious 2004 Champions Cup held in Huntington Beach with 80-90 teams entered, they had established themselves as legitimate contenders to win the Gold Nationals. Before the National tournament, we took 2 full weeks off, but scheduled 7 practice games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Georgia the weekend before the actual tournament, ironically playing a double header at the new Jack Turner Stadium at the U of Georgia against Marty Tyson and the Corona Angels, and also losing both games. Championship players perform at a higher level in actual competition I believe, and they went on to prove that. Kasi Carroll was an amazing pitcher. Threw a drop, and I would call it over and over, often to a fault. But she was absolutely a great tournament pitcher and in the three years she played with the Force she was named MVP of several tournaments, including the Canada Cup Futures, named Gold All American at 16 years old in Broken Arrow, OK and ultimately undefeated all week in Marietta at the 2004 Gold Championships. She was so special of competitor, smart, fiery, competitive and a great all around athlete. The infield of Martin 1B, Coonce 2B, Wagner/McGlaughlin, Diller 3B and Glasco C/Wagner C had played with and against each other for many years. They became a unit and were so effective behind Carroll, who was able to get ground ball after ground ball while seldom allowing the ball to get hit in the air. Then began the opening ceremonies and pool play saw us win both of our pool games. A good sign for the week that followed. In bracket play, the girls took care of business by winning 7 straight games to sweep through the Championship and along the way we played some great future all american pitchers like Megan Gibson, Angela Tincher, Angelica Seldon, and many more future college all american hitters like Dani Woods, Madi Coon, Mandi Cowles, Megan Langenfeld, Jamie Henshaw, and many other players that later became among the best college players in the nation. I recall the girls played that week without our great little lead off hitter Krystal Stein from Nashville, IL and they all played hurt, Katie Wagner with a stress fracture in her back, Chelsea Petty with a badly hurt wrist from being hit by pitch, Kasi Carroll pitching with a torn quad, and every player on the team endured through the normal soreness from a 16 game run over 9 days! I recall Erin catching every inning and Carroll throwing in pain with great composure as we ended the run. But playing for three years with a 9-10 man roster had taught the girls to finish the drill and how to play hurt. We never, ever had a practice during the off season that I recall and I also recall that the whole team were outstanding students with great grades and ACT scores. Also key were that they were from great families and had parents that were passionate about sports. Several ironies occurred though out the tournament. In the final 4 of winners bracket we beat the Corona Angels 2-1, and the Angels had beaten us 3 times that summer, and we had not yet beat them. In the winners bracket final, we played the Texas Impact Gold, and Megan Gibson was brought in with a runner on 3rd late in the game. We ran a fake squeeze play which caused the catcher to take eye of the ball and we won 1-0. Erin Glasco would later get to catch Megan and together they played for Texas A and M in the College World Series Championhsip, against Mandi Cowles who was on the CA Cruisers. In the finals we played a great CA Cruisers team, coached by Mel Sievers and led by such great players as Angelica Seldon, UCLA, Disiree Williams, (Texas), Mandi Cowles, Arizona State; Tricia Aggaboa,Stanford; Allesandra Giampaolo, Michigan and a roster full of great players that later were stars on the college diamonds across the country. We had went undefeated, and the Cruisers losing their first round game as I recall, only to win the next 10 or 11 in a row to reach the finals. This break allowed us to scout them all week, as I fully expected them to be who we played if we were lucky enough to get to the finals. Carroll held them 0-0 for 7 innings, Cowles pitching for them early, Seldon late. In the 8th we each scored one run. Neither scored in the 9th. We loaded the bases in the 10th and Shanna Diller hit a ground ball up the middle in the bottom of 10th for the win. Ironically, the great Toni Whitfield a high school rising junior, who played for me at our local HS, scored the winning run and made a game saving catch in CF in the 8th inning to play a key role in the championship run. Toni was and amazing athlete and student. Diller, like Coonce and Martin, a great hitter in every way delivering the final hit. . I also, recall Katie Wagner going 9 for 19 that week while playing with a stress fracture in her back, and apologizing to me because she could not play in the final 8 game due to severe back spasms before coming back the final 3 games to finish the tournament while in great pain. Katie had the heart of a champion, and seldom does a coach have the privilege of coaching a kid like her. Soon after this run, every player on the Southern Force 2004 roster all went on to college, each and every one participated in softball or athletics (Whitfield ran track at SIU), leaving their legacy by making the Southern Force a household name among travel ball circuit and with their great success on the field, also gave me the opportunity to coach at the college level, and now, even at the professional level, with ironically the very players we took the kids to watch back in 2003 at the Canadian Cup Tournament, Cat Osterman and Natasha Watley. So even though it was 10 years ago, these small town girls from all over the southern part of Illinois are still my heroes! Thinking about each of them today, and so thankful to have been blessed by their combined efforts and talents! Special players, special kids, special families and a special time and experience.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 21:04:24 +0000
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