This year will mark the 35th anniversary of the formation of Mustang Softball. This will also be the last year, unless there is more community interest in forming a team for next year and the school board reverses its vote from last year voting to disband the program and switch to volleyball. The board took the action following the junior high team only playing one game during the 2015 and 2016 seasons and that with only eight players. Last year marked the first year of its junior high volleyball program. There will be six seniors graduating from this year’s program.
The Start – 1983
Back in Spring 1983, a group of North Nodaway students went to Superintendent Bobby Kelley and asked if they could form a team. They had read an article about area softball standout Teresa Wilson in one of the local papers and wanted to play. Kelley told them to find a coach, and he would bring it up before the board. Marvin Murphy, a long-time coaching institution even back then, agreed to do it and the board agreed to offer girls softball. 21 girls came out for the team for its first year of existence. The first practice was on August 15th, 1983. Murphy was helped out by Deonne Sederburg, Teresa Wilson, and Lori Shell.
The Mustangs had played town ball and had a big schedule, but this was their first year playing school-sponsored softball. Their first-ever games were against West Nodaway, which was the defending state softball champion from the year before. The Mustangs showed they were up for the task, as they gained a split against the defending champs at North Nodaway. “Even though we lost a game, we went in with an attitude that we are winners, and we came out with the experience to make us winners,” said one of the players, Angie DeMott, in the student paper following the game. It was a mantra that Murphy would constantly preach to his players throughout his tenure coaching softball and basketball at North Nodaway.
The Mustangs made a run at the district title game, beating Worth County 18-0 that year to start. Pitcher Dinah Sederburg only allowed two hits that game, while the Mustangs got 14 hits. Sederburg and Nicki Baldwin, a freshman that year, each got three hits. Dannie Sederburg tossed a five hitter in the second game, a 17-4 victory over Cainsville. She barely missed the cycle, getting a home run, a double, and a single. But North Nodaway lost to Jefferson in the District Finals 8-1 as they only got three hits. Dianne Colville, Karma Bovard, and Roberta Totten each had one hit. 1983 was also the year that the pressbox on the right field side was built.
Baldwin, now Herndon, started all four years for North Nodaway in both softball and basketball. She had a lot of natural athletic ability; last fall, during a softball game, someone hit a foul ball to the left field side into the stands and out of play. Over 25 years after her playing days at North Nodaway and William Penn were over, she sprung up like a jack in the box and caught it barehanded. Everyone knew she was the real deal; she was named Courtwarming Queen that winter as a freshman. And she had the work ethic to go along with it. Her daughter, Kristin, will play as a senior on this fall’s team.
Ossie Sederburg, the father of Dannie, Dinah, and Deonne, was a coaching institution in his own right. In 1984, he was one of 50 youth coaches out of 920,000 to get a national award, the Gatorade Youth Coach Award, for his dedication to the sport.
1984 Season
The 1984 team consisted of Shelly McIntyre, Nicki Baldwin, Karma Bovard, Melissa Clements, Rhonda Swaney, Gail Turner, Julie Everhart, Lori Williams, Diane Pope, Angie DeMott, Dianne Colville, Lynette Gorman, Shelly Komers, Cherlyn Miller, Dinah Sederburg, and Tracy Sorensen.
The Mustangs got off to a fast start in the 1984 season, as they swept a double header against the Rockets, which were in decline following their state title run two years earlier. In the first game, the Mustangs leaped out to a 6-0 lead after one; they got the line moving as Dinah Sederburg, Rhonda Swaney, and Shelly Komers got hits and the Mustangs batted around. They took advantage of four walks and four Rocket errors in the frame as well. They scored two in the second and three in the third on their way to a 12-2 victory. Sederburg got the win and only allowed one hit.
The second game was closer for a while. But then the floodgates opened as the Mustangs got six in the fourth and eight in the fifth as they won 21-6 to sweep the doubleheader against their archrivals. Julie Everhart pitched for the win.
North Nodaway then gained a split against Mid-Buchanan. They were locked in a 1-1 tie against the Dragons, but a last-inning home run gave the Dragons a 2-1 victory. The Mustangs promptly fell behind 3-0 in the second game, but then proceeded to draw six straight walks at one point to get back in the game and take a 6-3 lead. After that, they realized they could play softball with this team as they got two more in the second, one in the fourth, and got a two-run triple from Dinah Sederburg in the fifth to make it 11-3.
Back then, just like it is now, one of the hardest tasks of any sports team was getting past Jefferson. But the Mustangs accomplished that task in 1984, beating them three times in a span of two days. They swept them in a double header, and then beat then in a tournament in Union Star two days later to accomplish the hat trick.
In the first game of the doubleheader, North Nodaway won a wild 10-9 game over the Eagles. Nicki Baldwin got a home run, a triple, and scored on a wild pitch. Karma Bovard got two singles and a home run, while Gail Turner and Dinah Sederburg got singles. Diane Colville pitched and got the win. In the second game, North Nodaway had a much easier time, winning 11-4. Dinah Sederburg got the win, giving up only four Eagle hits. Karma Bovard had another home run and four straight hits, from Nicki Baldwin, Dinah Sederburg, Diane Pope, and Lori Williams, sparked a five-run fifth inning.
Playing Jefferson for the third straight time, North Nodaway pushed a run across in the 7th inning for a 3-2 win as Rhonda Swaney crossed the plate. That game turned out to be the championship game as the Mustangs beat Union Star in a laughter, 16-3 for the title. Baldwin and Pope each had three hits, Bovard, Sederburg, and Williams each had two hits, and Swaney and Komers each had one hit. Baldwin, Pope, and Swaney each had doubles.
North Nodaway got back to the district finals, crushing Worth County 15-0 along the way as Sederburg got a one-hitter for the win. Baldwin had a home run and a single, while Bovard had two doubles. But Jefferson pulled off a late rally to end North Nodaway’s season.
State Championship Season
But North Nodaway was not to be denied in its quest to get past Jefferson and finally make it to state. Playing for the 1985 State Championship team were Julie Everhart, Tracy Sorensen, Shelly Lynch, Lori Thompson, Shelly Komers, Tiffany Uhlmann, Nicki Baldwin, Diane Colville, Karma Bovard, Gail Turner, Diane Pope, Angie DeMott, Cherlyn Miller, and Dinah Sederburg.
Among the highlights of the season, the Mustangs got past Mid-Buchanan 5-0 as Diane Colville got three runs, Nicki Baldwin one run, and Karma Bovard one.
Against a solid Northeast Nodaway team, Sederburg struck out 14 and only allowed two hits. Back to back doubles by Julie Everhart and Nicki Baldwin led to one run. Shelly Komers drove in one with a double. In the fourth, Komers added a triple to score Diane Pope, while Dinah Sederburg homered in the sixth. Cindy Wilmes scored the lone run for Northeast, while Linda Schmitz (now Mattson) hit two doubles off Sederburg, getting the only two NEN hits off her.
Against West Nodaway, the Mustangs won by a football-type score, 27-0. They scored 12 in the first, sparked by back to back triples from Diane Colville and Nicki Baldwin; they had seven singles in the inning as they kept the line moving. Highlighted by an Everhart triple, they got six more runs in the second and nine more in the third. Sederburg got a perfect game, striking out seven of the nine batters she faced. The Hopkins Journal for that week, with Jim Lohman as editor, featured a front page picture of Sederburg in a punk rock outfit as the students were dressing up for the football homecoming.
Playing Northeast for the second time, the game was scoreless until the fourth. Then, the Mustangs manufactured a run as Dinah Sederburg singled, Diane Pope singled her to second, and Karma Bovard singled her home to make it 1-0. The Mustangs got an insurance run in the fifth as Nicki Baldwin walked, Dinah Sederburg singled her over to third, and Diane Pope flied out to score Baldwin to make it 2-0. The floodgates opened up in the seventh as Nicki Baldwin singled, Dinah Sederburg tripled her home, and everyone else teed off as North Nodaway came home with the 7-1 win over NEN.
The Mustangs got a 13-0 win over Worth County at Union Star; the rest of the tournament was rained out. The second game against West Nodaway was even more ridiculously lopsided than the first. In what may have been the state scoring record before Worth County broke it in 2008, North Nodaway put up 20 runs in the first inning and came away with the 38-0 win. The Mustangs were involved in both games; they were on the losing end of Worth County’s 41-29 win in a debacle that featured a ton of walks by both sides. In the West Nodaway game, Sederburg got a home run and a double, while Julie Everhart and Tracy Sorensen had triples.
The next game was much more competitive as North Nodaway and Jefferson squared away. The Mustangs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second as Diane Pope reached on an error and stole second. Karma Bovard doubled and Cherlyn Miller singled them home. In the third, Colville reached on an error and stole and Dinah Sederburg singled her home to make it 3-0. Jefferson scored its lone run in the fourth.
North Nodaway’s closest game to that point came in the second Mid-Buchanan game, which went scoreless until the sixth. But Dinah Sederburg kept North Nodaway in the game as she struck out 10 in the game. Finally, Nicki Baldwin singled and Diane Colville got a sac bunt. Baldwin made it all the way to third and then came home when Jefferson threw it away trying to retire her as Colville took second. Karma Bovard’s home run made it 3-0 for the final.
North Nodaway breezed through districts and finally got past Jefferson. In the first, Nicki Baldwin reached on an error. Karma Bovard and Dinah Sederburg both singled, and they were up 1-0. Three straight hits got another run home in the third as Colville singled, Bovard singled, and Sederburg doubled to make it 2-0. Jefferson cut it to 2-1 in their half of the third, but Bovard singled in the fifth and Sederburg doubled to put runners on second and third. Diane Pope reached on an error as both runs scored and Cherlyn Miller drove in Pope to make it 5-1.
The Mustangs breezed through Sectionals and then had two more games to go at Columbia before they could win the whole ball of wax. First, against Ashland, they manufactured a run in the first inning and made it stand up. Diane Colville singled, Karma Bovard moved her over with a sac bunt, and Diane Pope singled her home for a 1-0 lead. That turned out to be the only run they would need. Sederburg struck out 11 and had plenty of help in the field. In the third, Diane Colville made a diving catch in center field. In the fourth, Ashland got runners on second and third with one out, but Sederburg got back to back strikeouts to get out of the inning. In the sixth, Diane Pope snagged a bunt that went into the air and doubled a runner off first to kill another Ashland rally.
That left Wheaton as the lone team standing between North Nodaway and a state title. 75 North Nodaway fans made the trip to Columbia to support their team. Once again, North Nodaway scored in the first, and once again, they would make it stand up. Dinah Sederburg singled home Nicki Baldwin to make it 1-0, and the game moved along really quickly, only taking one hour to play as there were a lot of 1-2-3 innings. Finally, in the seventh, Nicki Baldwin singled again and stole second successfully. The ball got away and Baldwin broke for third. It looked like a close play, but the throw hit her helmet as she was sliding in and bounded away, allowing her to score an insurance run to make it 2-0. Coaches tell their players all the time to use their heads, and Nicki must have taken it literally.
While players like Baldwin and Sederburg got all the attention, it took everyone pulling together for the Mustangs to get their state title. As instrumental as anyone was first baseman Gail Turner; in the Hopkins Journal, they had a picture of her showcasing her uncanny stretching ability to take a hit away at the state tournament. Coach Murphy told his team throughout the journey that they were winners. “If you work hard, study hard, and practice hard, you can go to the state tournament,” he said. That year, the players bought in and did so.
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