Members of the 1992 North Harrison Boys and Girls Softball Teams were recognized following Tuesday’s 16-0 victory over Winston. The boys won the first-ever state title for the franchise and went 14-0, unbeaten for the year. The girls went 21-3, finally got past Princeton after two years of falling short, and finished fourth in state. They laid the groundwork for the 1993 State Championship team next year.
Members of the boys team were Wes Gibson, Tom Thompson, Dustin Wilcoxson, Bryan Craig, Corbet Wilson, Gabe Stapel, Laren Cox, Jeremy Rinehart, Chris Jones, and Bill Pottorff. What they lacked in numbers, they more than made up for in talent and heart as they went all the way. They beat Cainsville 12-0, North Daviess 18-0, Gilman City 11-1, and Tri-County 25-0 to start off the season.
The second leg was harder as they beat Ridgeway 15-3 and Pattonsburg 16-1 before fending off a determined challenge from archrival Ridgeway to win 4-3. They then played the tough part of their conference schedule, beating Grundy County 7-4, Mercer twice 6-1 and 10-5, Winston 13-4, and Grundy County again 4-3.
In the 7-4 victory, North Harrison survived their closest brush with defeat, falling behind 3-0. But then Wes Gibson got down two key bunts that fueled North Harrison’s comeback; he had four RBI’s. Wilcoxson struck out 11 batters in the 6-1 victory over Winston.
They were selected for the State Tournament on the basis of their conference title and beat Tina-Avalon 19-2 before beating Bunceton (not to be confused with Princeton) 7-0 for the title.
The Shamrocks had trailed 2-0 against Tina-Avalon in the third inning when back to back home runs from Dustin Wilcoxson and Corbet Wilson got them back in the game and opened the floodgates.
Members of the 1992 Shamrocks were Talia (Kinder) Brown, Karen (Pottorff) Fine, Joely (Eivins) Francis, Sara Bosch, Heather (Eller) Barnes, Barb (Abplanalp) Holcomb, Angie (Rinehart) Breshears, Jill (Wilcoxson) Brown, Kym (Barnhouse) Mathes, Lori (Hale) Craig, Dava (Nelson) Laxton, Lyndsay (Lighthill) Bellinger, Brandi (Ury) Hurt, and Angie (Craig) Baker.
The Shamrocks cruised through the regular season, beating Cainsville 16-0, North Daviess 26-0, Tri-County 17-0, Grundy County 16-0, and bigger schools like Lawson 5-1. They run-ruled each of their opponents to win the conference tournament, avenged their only regular season loss by beating South Harrison 5-0 at the North Harrison Tournament, and finally got past Heather Niemeyer and Princeton 13-0 after they were turned back by Dannette Derry and the Blue Tigers the previous two years. They won conference for the third year in a row, stretching their conference winning streak to 32 games, a streak that would stretch to 72 games before it was snapped.
Finally, North Harrison was stopped 1-0 by Tina-Avalon in the State Tournament as their girls avenged North Harrison’s boys game in state. They were beaten by Humansville in the third place game 10-2, but that laid the groundwork for the 1993 team which won state.
That 1993 team broke Worth County’s hearts in Sectionals with a 9-2 win. Worth County was down 5-0, but pushed one run across in the sixth to make it 5-1 and had a runner on third with one out. If that run had scored, anything could have happened as Worth County had tagged Jefferson with 15 runs and Princeton with 8 runs earlier in the year. But Worth County hit a grounder to third, and the North Harrison girl faked a throw to first and tagged Katie Groce out to help them get out of that inning. Worth County lost 9-2, and North Harrison would go on to win state that year. Mike Schmidli, who was the coach of that softball team, said they had just practiced that play the day before and had pulled it off earlier in the year, proof that coaches sometimes have a sixth sense.
Dava Nelson was the pitcher for those teams, and she was a perfectionist, never happy unless she located her pitches exactly where she wanted them. She could throw it consistently at 60 miles per hour, even in brutally cold weather. Not only that, her pitches would break all over the place, tying up even the best hitter and making them miss.
Four of the current players have mothers who played on the 1992 team. They have not eclipsed the 1992 team’s conference winning streak, because the HDC smaller, Pattonsburg has left the conference, and others have formed softball cooperatives with each other. But they are working on a 37 game conference winning streak this year, not including Tuesday’s game with Mercer. The last time the Shamrocks lost a conference game was in 2012, 4-3 to Pattonsburg, before the present group of seniors was still in junior high.
This year’s edition batted around in the first inning, tagging Winston for five runs before putting them away in the second. Winston held Payton Craig in check, getting her to ground out to start the second. But everyone else hit in that frame as North Harrison scored 11 to put the game away. Brandi Rivet roped one down the right field line for a triple; Audrey Briggs hit a screamer between right and center, didn’t realize how hard she’d hit it, and had to be coaxed to come to third as Kylie Pottorff (running for Rivet) scored. Emma Craig hit a single that got through the center fielder’s legs to score Briggs, while Ashlynn Gilpatrick reached on a grounder between the pitcher’s legs after Emma Craig had scored on a wild pitch.
That opened the floodgates – Kami Gibson shot one into left center field for a double, Mason Cracraft tripled to right center, Carly Rinehart hit a shot off the shortstop’s glove for a scratch hit, Rainey Fordyce hit a short off the third baseman’s glove for another. Even the one out, Brandi Rivet’s smash, was hit hard.
The Shamrocks sent 14 batters to the plate, scored 11 runs, and put the Redbirds away in the frame. But one record that will not be broken as long as Brandon Craig is the coach is the scoring record. Once his team’s margin reaches 15 runs, he’s seen enough and has his runners lead off before the pitch. The goal is to prevent injuries and keep his players sharp as well as show respect for the other team.
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