Craig Worrell and I share a space in the Carroll County High School Hall of Fame in the category of contributions. Craig earned his over decades of providing coverage and photos for CCHS. He is also the son of legendary coach Bill Worrell, who has his name on the ball diamond where our Casey Burcham currently works his magic.

The thing that separated Craig and Allen Worrell and their newspapers is Allen only had one school to provide unconditional love and support for while Craig had three. Galax High and Grayson County High each looked for Craig to be their shining light, non-stop. You want to talk about a tough beat to have….

Craig is still the creator of the oversized team photos that hang at both Cavalier Park and Bill Worrell Field. We crossed paths just last week in the gym during our volleyball match, and seeing him always brings a giant smile to my face.

That week was a very hectic one for Craig and you will see more of his coverage later on but I asked him if he could pen 🖊 one more story that had not been read before and he knocked off the dirt in his cleats, stepped in to the batters box and knocked it out of the park with this one.

was honored when Jerry Carter asked me to recount some memories I have of Carroll County’s 2015 Group 4A state softball championship. I would like to begin by commending Jerry for the immense investment of time, effort, energy and resources he has put into Carroll County athletics. Having a son in the athletic program during his time here at CCHS makes me grateful for his tangible contributions to Cavalier sports. But with the unique perspective of having spent three decades as a sports editor in the Twin Counties, I can say without a doubt that it’s impossible to put a price tag on the investment Jerry has made with his time, be it traveling, writing stories, planning, engaging coaches or players, manning a microphone or the countless other ways he has poured himself into Cavalier sports. It is woefully inadequate, but…Thank you Jerry.

You’re out (finally)

It was definitely one of the best battles I ever witnessed in any sport at any level as a sportswriter. Although the passage of time and the unfolding of subsequent events have most likely combined to dim its importance (and it definitely has been overshadowed by the hullaballoo of what would happen one game later), it was without a doubt one of the three or four most important moments in CCHS sports history. After all, had it turned out differently, who knows how subsequent events would have unfolded?

This moment didn’t come during the state championship game, but its magnitude lies in the fact that Carroll’s first ever title game appearance may not have even happened had this outcome been different.

In the Group 4A state semifinals at Liberty University, Carroll County led Deep Creek 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs and nobody on base. Playing as the home team, the Cavaliers were in the field in the bottom of the seventh and playing for the first state title game appearance in any sport in school history. But with two outs, Deep Creek got back to the top of its order and the Hornets’ leadoff batter beat out a bunt for a base hit (her third bunt single of the day) and stole two bases (her fourth and fifth steals of the day) to put the tying run on third. Deep Creek’s No. 2 batter, Nikki Smith, quickly fell behind 0-2 to Cavalier pitcher Sydney Nester, but Smith fouled off pitch after pitch after pitch, each one ratcheting the tension to another level.

Smith eventually worked her way to a 3-2 full count when finally, on the 14th pitch of the at-bat, Nester coaxed Smith into a comeback grounder to the circle. The Carroll ninth-grader tossed to first baseman and fellow freshman Emily Cook for the final out, and the Cavaliers had at one last earned a spot in the state championship game.

You’re in (finally)

Something I remember from my early sportswriting days is that when visiting the gymnasium Blacksburg’s old high school, It was impossible to not notice the banners. They were smallish, maybe two feet by three feet in size, arranged neatly in rows and columns on a wall on one end of the gym. The most striking thing was that there weren’t any district or region championship banners. Nothing about runner-up efforts. Each banner signified a state championship, and there were dozens of them, as if they were no big deal. 

I remember wondering if Carroll County would ever join that club.

After more than four decades, the Cavaliers finally did. It was like waiting 45 years for that Christmas morning in which you finally got the official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle.

It seems kind of odd but a lot of my thoughts about Carroll County’s first state championship in a team sport, one that was earned outdoors and on dirt and synthetic grass, spark memories about a couple of gymnasiums.

I grew up at CCHS, literally and metaphorically. My dad was on the original staff as a teacher and baseball coach when the shiny new county high school opened, and I remember as a 4-year-old kid in the summer of 1969 walking around the gym with only half of the hardwood playing surface having been laid in place. I remember that a faint ambient light was the only thing keeping the gym from being in total darkness. I was afraid to go near where the hardwood of the half-completed surface ended because I didn’t want to fall off of the edge and end up wherever 4-year-olds landed when they fell off of stuff in the dark.

It was dark. And I was only little but I remember the newness of it all. I remember clean, white walls and I had no inkling that it would be more than 45 years before those walls would display a state championship banner that so many other gyms already had.

As a little kid, as a bat boy for my dad’s teams, as an athlete and student there and then as a sportswriter for most of my adult life, I saw thousands of CCHS athletes come and go and I saw some incredibly talented teams come up short in the postseason. As the landscape of the VHSL alignment and postseason setup evolved I wondered if Carroll would ever break through and win a state title. Back in the day when there were just three classifications instead of six, and the region tournaments consisted of just four teams each, I watched those great boys’ basketball teams of the late 70s and early 80s that were plenty good enough to win a title. I played on two baseball teams that were talented enough to win state and there were others baseball teams that were capable of going all the way. I watched the phenomenal girls’ basketball program that had teams solid enough and talented enough to win it all.

Year by year, all of them had that one game that halted their run. It was a game against a team that just played better that night. It was one bad inning. It was one cold night shooting the ball. Whatever the reason, it just didn’t happen.

Until it did.

Girls’ basketball won back-to-back championships in 2022-23, but in 2015, a Carroll state championship was still something to dream of. Throughout that 2015 softball postseason there was this pervasive feeling that Carroll County was going to make it al the way, and in the process become the first team to even make a title game appearance.

Woodgrove High, located in Loudoun County, was in the middle of a nine-year string of state championship game appearances. Carroll County was in the middle of nowhere, according to a Northern Virginia newspaper account. Each team was spearheaded by a freshman phenom pitcher. Camryn Dolby of Woodgrove would eventually sign with Boston College, Sydney Nester of Carroll County inked with N.C. State. Of those two freshmen, only one carried herself as an upperclassman that day. Of those two teams, only one did its homework.

Plenty has been written about the game – a 1-0 Carrol County win in which the game’s only run was scored by a freshman pinch runner, on a pickle play. The pitching was fantastic. The Cavaliers’ defense (zero errors in five region and state tournament games) was flawless. The scouting and preparation by Carroll (and the lack thereof by Woodgrove) was the difference. It made the difference on the success of a trick play the Cavaliers had pulled off in a regional game the week before. It made the difference between a 1-0 win and a game that otherwise could have gone on and on and on.

It made the difference between a gym without a state championship banner and a gym with one.

Craig Worrell is a quiet GIANT of a man, and I treasure getting to know him. I didn’t have the honor of knowing his late father, but if he’s anything like Craig, I am thrilled his name is on our baseball diamond.