2009 All Area Softball Team: More to come from this group full of fun-to-watch underclassmen

As beloved broadcaster Dick Vitale would say, “The Diaper Dandies are super scintillating sensational” this year.

In English, what I’m trying to say is the young talent around here is good — really good.

Area softball teams didn’t fully impress in 2009 as far as team achievements go, save a memorable run from the Jonesville girls and another SCAA and district title from Camden-Frontier — but the local pot is boiling over with potential.

For starters, only three All Area players graduated and four of them have reached just the midway point of their careers.

The SCAA is loaded with girls who are only going to get better and the finest example of this is Camden-Frontier’s duo of Morgan Warfield and Megan Schwartzengraber.

As much as people around here have heard Lantis and Gabriele on the baseball side of things for three years, they might hear about these hotshots even more.

Warfield hit .473 with 28 RBIs and her .95  ERA with 175  strikeouts in 94 1/3 innings on the mound is downright nasty.

The only player who really compares in both categories is, you guessed it, the girl with the really long last name that is hard to spell and even harder to forget.

Schwartzengraber had a miniscule 1.09 ERA this year, with 153 strikeouts in 44 2/3 innings and she drove in a team-high 35 runs to go with her .429 average.

Being partners in crime can only help their cause as they push each other to the next level in what they hope can be a regional championship team in the near future.

Taking a bit of a back seat to them as a freshman, but bursting onto the scene this year was Waldron sophomore Kelsy White.

She hit an eye-popping .555 with an on-base percentage of .659 and 28 RBIs. She is also an extremely good defensive catcher for being so young and only time will tell what types of ridiculous career numbers she could end up with.

In Hillsdale they have a super sophomore of their own in Tiki Malone.

She’s the kind of athlete you’d want to have in a fox hole with you, as she has no regard for her body and she expects the same pedal-to-the-metal effort from her teammates.

She continues to improve at the plate and is the kind of leader that could help turn the Hornets program around.

Several area juniors will be difference making seniors next year, most of them as ace pitchers.

Jenna Crawford had trouble filling Bree Harmon’s shoes off the bat, but the Hillsdale junior grew exponentially over the course of the year and she went toe-to-toe with Jonesville senior Kelsey Aemisegger in the district semifinals this year.

Similarly, Pittsford’s Nicole Culbert had many a fine outing on the mound and when she was on, it gave her teammates something to feed off of.

With the aforementioned Aemisegger calling it a career, the Comets will count on Kelly White more than ever next season.

As a junior she won five games pitching, with a 4.30 ERA and 77 strikeouts in 83 innings. She also hit .323 and had 20 RBIs.

The final junior pitcher to watch as a senior is Kasie Owens of Reading.

As Owens went so went the Rangers. She was a workhorse who continues to improve her control and Kelly Mulnix will need all she can get from her next year if Reading wants to take the next step.

The final junior on the All Area squad is Quincy’s Brogan Veysey-White, who hit .424, had an on-base percentage of .600 and melded perfectly with Bree Harmon.

Harmon was one of three seniors on the team, all of who made profound differences at their schools.

Going back to the school she started at, Harmon went 25-3 and broke the Orioles’ career strikeout record in 2009.

Another unfailing force in the area was Aemiesegger. The Comets rode her all the way to a regional semifinals appearance and she will be dearly missed.

She drove in 25 runs and struck out 104 batters in 113 innings.

Last but not least is C-F senior leader Kara Bryner. Melissa Warfield said she has no clue how she’ll replace her and rightfully so. She made teammates laugh, made them work harder and was the quintessential first-rate high school athlete. It doesn’t hurt either that she hit .367 with 27 RBIs.

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Undiscovered Champs

[caption id="attachment_621" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="The Camden-Frontier softball team practices earlier this month — with only 11 girls and a barn in the background."][/caption]

Sorry about absolutely NO posts as of late, but 12-14 hour days at the sports desk and tournaments, championship meets and the conclusion of the regular season is wearing me out, and I don't need to get carpal tunnel from blogging!

Anyways, one quick note, then a full-length feature to indulge yourself in if you've got a little time and consider yourself a Hillsdale County high school sports fan.

First, the note: The last four days is precisely why I've always liked the NBA way more than college basketball. The personalities are bigger, the stakes are higher and as LBJ proved last night, the players are exponentially more talented. Hands in the face are no matter, time is no object and sorry to plug it, in a very non-journalistic fashion, but the NBA IS "Where Amazing Happens...". Wow.

Anyways, onto the local stuff. This feature took several weeks, many phone calls, and me attending a C-F softball practice and I hope it provides a worthwhile glimpse of what it's like trying to build a successful program at a Class D school with a whole lot of variables involved. Enjoy.

Undiscovered Champs

An inside look at the success of the Camden-Frontier girls’ athletic program, what it tries to stand for and what types of challenges stand in its way.

Gale-force winds rip through the country side, where cows and horses outnumber cars and houses.

A hint of manure melds with the smell of fresh grass with the wide blue yonder as the backdrop.

An out-of-place Powerade ad takes up space on an already tiny scoreboard not far from a gaggle of evergreens that ever so slightly blocks the view of your run-of-the-mill red barn.

This is where 11 girls practice in anonymity this May, hoping to stay healthy so their championship hopes don't hit the injured reserve.

This is the softball diamond for a team that holds no tryouts and has no room for errors, yet expects to uphold its lofty definitions of success.

This is the venue Dawn Follis and Melissa Warfield have turned into a beacon for getting the most out of young girls, all skill levels, as long as they possess strong hearts and commendable work ethics.

Sometimes it seems like no one cares, especially college scouts and on occasion even their own fans — but if they cared what everyone else thought, they may never have built programs with such strong winning traditions in the first place.

A winning tradition that includes five straight SCAA volleyball titles from 2003-07, six district championships in girls hoops since the turn of the century and district titles in softball in 2003 and 2008.

Being a bit off the beaten path, and one of 11 high schools in the county, it is relatively easy to remain anonymous though.

If only people understood what takes place at 4971 West Montgomery Rd.

FOLLOW THE LEADER
Players come and go, so sometimes the face of a high school program is its unchanging leader.

Follis is fiery, but gentle, all at once, urging her volleyball teams to conference championships each fall, but once basketball rolls around in November the Redskin girls are all Warfield's, until the end of June.

For the last 16 seasons she has called the shots for C-F basketball, and in 2001 she took over as the varsity softball coach.

Coaching was never part of Warfield's plan, until a school board member gave her the heads up on the JV basketball job opening in 1994. Now Warfield can't imagine life without it.

[caption id="attachment_623" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Head coach Melissa Warfield does it all at C-F, including trying to catch flyballs with a bucket."][/caption]

She pitches to her girls in batting practice, runs around the outfield shagging fly-balls, and tries to interweave solid principles with explanatory demonstrations. In her mind not much has changed over the years, other than her body is starting to feel the wear-and-tear and she likes to think she's learned a trick or two.

Warfield said she gleans philosophical ideas from books written by historically successful coaches like Pat Summit, John Wooden and Mike Krzyzewski, but ultimately she feels like she's done her job if she is instilling valuable life principles.

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