2025 – 2026 Senior Class, as of today.

Emma Harman
Laiken Burnett
Holly Miller
Madison Coleman
Brooke Webb
Bailey Allen

  As we head into the supposed Off Season, its a great time to reflect on anything new that can be done to assist the six young Student Athletes listed above.

In 2023 this group were Freshman in High School and Carroll County was flirting with the possibility of hanging a second State Championship banner on The Hill. While nobody can say with absolute certainty that it would have happened, I do feel that if Rick Nester has Lauren Alley’s Bat and Glove on his lineup card, we come home to a Parade.

  Northside edged us at home and then the Vikings steamrolled the field on their way to the Crown 👑. That team had leadership to spare, including eight members of the Senior Class. They had worked their way through the system and it was their time to shine.

The 2024 season was a positive experience for the ever so young team, which will happen when you graduate 🎓 eight players. The group over achieved and followed the lead of Seniors Emma Leath and Katherine Lindamood.

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blog/2024/05/10/about-our-softball-senior-night-%F0%9F%8C%99-and-the-loop/

That was a Top 10 Memory in regards to goofy things people do when they care about others.

The just completed season of 2024-2025 was a setback year for the program and anyone who was part of it knows the reasons why. The Trifecta of Emma Leath graduating, Jeff Tobler shocking passing away during the Christmas break and Holly Miller being lost for the season in the home opener.

Carlie Beamer was the lone Senior on the squad and one would be challenged to find a nicer person walking the earth. But the task of trying to lead the group through the obstacles in front of them should not have fallen on any one person.

  Will the book we are working on move the needle for the group of six ? I can’t speak for anyone else but my recent exchange with Cheyenne Strickland makes me want to be better at everything I do. Such an amazing young Lady and she wasn’t the only one from that group.

Our Youth need role models and the 2015 team was stocked full of people to look up to and not just on the ball field.

The challenge here is to right the ship 🚢 and for the six Seniors involved it starts next week at the end of the season picnic. I know each of the six and each brings a special quality to the table. We have the facility, we have the coaching, we have the support of our Administration and we have friends and family 👪 members who support the team.

There are plenty of folks waiting in the wings, from the underclassmen to the Junior Varsity and the Middle School teams. Addie Greene, Natalie Burress, Raylee Goins and Laynie-Jo Leonard should be taking notes 📝 so when its their turn.

Somewhere during the window of team fellowship on Monday night, let’s hope that there’s one moment where one of these six players looks in the direction of her teammates and smiles, the kind of smile that translates to ” We got this.”

Now you know more about the timing of the project, in regards to Page County, Carroll County and myself. The clock ⏰ is ticking and its time to do like the old Buffalo 🐃 Bills, Circle the Wagons.

   The fact that its the 10 year Anniversary of that glorious day of June 13, 2015 has a smidgen to do with the timing but today we will take a deeper look at why timing is so important.

We will take a look at the Page County side of the equation first. Alan Knight has been coaching Softball in Shenandoah now for going on 45 years. The actual number of years is a story in itself because Knight doesn’t want credit for the covid season that kept the Lady Panthers from playing.

The team this season was sitting at 3-3, which had the Haters (Thanks, Taylor) lining up to show the Old Man the door. One doesn’t win 1000+ games without bothering others along the way. The slow 🐌 start was followed by 17 straight wins and a spot hosting the Regional final against Central – Woodstock.

  The Falcons picked up a hard to come by road victory that day, sending PCHS on the road to King William. The same opponent the Lady Panthers defeated in both 2014 and 2015 for the State Championship. KWHS scored three late runs to end the season for Page County and they would eventually fall to Central in the State finals.

Once again, Knight won the battle against Father Time. The fact that he has seven State Titles to his name and membership in both the Page County High School 🏫 Hall of Fame and the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame, yet he’s still out there coaching is a testimony about who he is.

  The fun part of this story is Knight is not the only Page County High School graduate with seven rings earned while coaching in the Commonwealth.

Dodson flirted with ring 💍 #8 this season with his success required packing up and leaving town. The definition of an inside joke as Spotswood High School is just 19 miles from Page County High.

Dodson and Knight share a stage in Page County High School history with others, like Wayne Comer, who played Baseball in the Big Leagues back in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

My connection with Knight stems back roughly a quarter of a century now and Page County was our home for a decade and still is home to one of our five Children and four of our nine grandchildren. Our business was located there and I have nothing but fond memories of the Shenandoah Valley.

The fact that Knight is still going at this with everything he has is a story in itself. We joke about how life changed the day we were able to officially dedicate the field to him as to which one of us it meant more to ?

The end of the road is near, for no other reason than it has to, right ?

https://augustafreepress.com/news/alan-knight-the-high-school-coach-who-quietly-won-1000-games/

This was the story from back in 2022 that was part of the VHSL Hall of Fame packet. I am pretty proud of my work on that one.

Thank You to both Chris Graham at the Augusta Free Press and Randy Arrington at the Page Valley News for running the article.

Timing, the why now for myself is I’m getting older by the minute. For Alan, he cannot do this forever and I am proud to have been along for half the ride. In regards to Rick Nester and Carroll County Softball, that will be the next piece to the puzzle.