Brandon Craig has retired as the softball coach of North Harrison with 314 career victories. That makes him the winningest softball coach in Shamrock softball history. He ends his career of 21 years with 314 wins, 170 losses, 12 HDC conference titles, 12 HDC tournament titles, seven district titles, and two trips to state.
Justin Joyner will be the new head coach, assisted by Kiley Gibson. Craig will continue to teach agriculture at the school and sponsor the FFA program.
In 2003, his second year at North Harrison, his team got off to a bad start. “I wanted to go dig a hole and bury myself,” he said. But then, the team caught fire, won conference, and kept right on winning, going to state that year.
The team went 15-7 in 2004, but dropped off in 2005. But Craig rebuilt the program and the Shamrocks won 18 games in 2009 and 22 games in 2014 and 2015. But try as they might, they could never get over the sectional hurdles.
But in 2017, they finally got over the hurdles, beating Platte Valley 3-2 in Sectionals and Maysville in Quarterfinals, going back to state. They dropped a 4-2 heartbreaker to Canton in the semifinals, but recovered to beat Chafee 4-2 to get the third place trophy.
In 2020, the country was still in the throes of COVID-19, and nobody knew if they would have school, let alone play any games. The entire spring season had been canceled. But North Harrison persevered in the adversity and won 20 games that year. They won their 56th straight HDC conference game and won their 10th straight conference tournament before they left for the Grand River Conference starting in 2021.
In 2021, Craig won his 300th career game as his Shamrocks beat Mercer 11-4. In 2022, nobody expected much of the Shamrocks, seeding them low at Albany. But they gained some quality wins that year over State Quarterfinalist King City, no-hitters over Green City and Albany, Gallatin (21 wins), and Winston (20 wins) on their way to a 12-12 season.
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