Carroll County High School Softball had five coaches and 15 players that are officially listed on the team that captured the first ever State Championship back in 2015. Each person on the roster contributed to the landmark victory.

The team as a group is in the CCHS Hall of Fame as well as two of the coaches and four of the players

Varsity Head Coach Rick Nester is still at the helm of the program a decade later but sadly Assistant Coach Jeff Tobler has passed away, with his untimely death taking place last December. The duo coached side by side in a number of situations across the partnership which ended way to soon.

David Quesenberry was part of the staff and worked with the pitching, one of the unquestionable strengths that was magnified by the thrilling 1-0 victory in the title game at Liberty University.

Edwin Tompkins and Cindy Edwards led the Junior Varsity team that season and Edwards is still the Varsity Volleyball 🏐 Coach at Carroll County. Edwards is closing in on 500 victories during her time on The Hill.

The 15 players include four young Ladies that have been voted into the Hall of Fame after their time competing as Lady Cavaliers. Emily Cook was a Freshman Pitcher as was Sidney Nester. The other two were Senior leaders, centerfielder Tiffanie Moore and Shortstop Cheyenne Strickland.

The next group of four were Junior Varsity players that were called up for the post season. Alexis Meredith, Katie McKenzie, Jeannie Utt and Elizabeth Combs. It was Utt that entered the Championship game as a pinch runner 🏃‍♂️ and came around to score the games only run on the famous ” Pickle Play “. Utt was a sophomore while the other three were freshman.

The balance of the starting lineup included Seniors, Hannah Dalton and Sydney Childress and Juniors, Morgan Tompkins, Gracie Davidson and Kayla Robinson. Sophomores Caitlin Horton and Kendall Hiatt completed the squad.

One of the things to remember is that when you move forward a decade a number of the maiden names have changed after the players became married. One easy one to see is that Alexis Meredith went on to become Alexis Dalton and just finished up her stint as the Junior Varsity Head Coach.

One of the questions that come up when a State Championship game is won is how many horses 🐎 does it take to accomplish the feat ?

I have been fortunate enough to get to meet up with two of the said Horses involved in winning the crown 👑, Moore and Nester. Moore at the family home in Dugspur and Nester during her final season at Marshall University.

Now we know the list of players and coaches that teamed up to secure the initial State Championship for Carroll County High School. The part of the process that will be interesting as we go forward is to figure out how many people are interested in participating in the creation of the story about what happened 10 years ago ???

Carroll County and Page County shared a magical day a decade ago. On the Lady Cavaliers side of things it was a first and nobody should ever forget their first !