Category: Carroll County High School

Final Day of Golden Bear 🐻 Baseball ⚾️ in Beckley today, Win or lose (but hopefully Win)

High Noon is the estimated time for today’s First Pitch between West Virginia Tech University and Indiana University, Purdue University @ Columbus (IUPUC). WVU-T captured the opening game Friday by a score of 10-4 and now need to win one more to advance to the River States Conference tournament next week in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Waking up to all of the Prom photos 📷 from last night on The Hill put me in a reflective mood for sure. Prom in many ways signals that the end is near, not the end of the story but the end of one chapter of the story.

The thought train 🚆 started rolling down the tracks quickly and brought me to realize that here in a few hours I will be calling Golden Bears 🐻 Baseball ⚾️ for the final time today. If we win one of the two games then the team moves on the final eight up in Ohio next week and if they were to drop both games then their season would reached the end. Either way, the chapter closes at the end of the day today and what a chapter it has been!

Sixteen seasons ago Lawrence Nesselrodt accepted the Head Coaching job at WVU-T, which at the time was located in Montgomery, West Virginia. I still remember the day of the very first home game when I drove to Montgomery to support the man 👨 I tagged as “Big Picture” Nesselrodt. Making the drive 🚗 from Luray, Virginia, I pulled into the campus only to find out that there was no baseball field there and the games were played at East Bank Middle School.

So the journey began at East Bank Middle School 🏫 and today it ends at Linda K Epling Stadium 🏟 in Beckley, West Virginia. There has been home games played in a number of home parks and stadiums along the way, heck, the University itself moved during this stretch.

What started in Montgomery is now located in Beckley and if you have never been to Montgomery it would be difficult to truly appreciate just what the transition was from one to the other.

The program has also changed Conferences along the way before landing in RSC a few years back. The league itself has expanded to a record high 12 teams this season which in turn created the format that has us playing the games this weekend.

In years past, the Top Six teams advanced to Chillicothe but this year the decision was made to hold play-in weekend series across the league. The irony of this is that the Golden Bears 🐻 would have advanced to the tournament in Chillicothe this season after finishing up in the #6 spot in the league. But with the new format, the team had to requalify for the event through a weekend series.

The world 🌎 of N .A .I .A Baseball ⚾️ is a very unique place and books 📚 could be written on the subject and probably should be one day. But for the teams in the RSC, Chillicothe is the Promise Land. The Golden Bears 🐻 have made it up there one time and actually advanced to the Championship game before losing in the ninth inning. The next step 🚶‍♂️ from Chillicothe is the NAIA World Series and as the old joke about the Lottery goes – you can’t Win if you don’t play. One cannot dream about the World Series without first getting a ticket to Chillicothe !

Hopefully that ticket 🎟 gets punched here in a few hours, whether it be in Game 2 (Noon) or Game 3 (if necessary) at 3:30 pm.

16 years is a decent amount of time in one’s life and its been quite the ride with Lawrence “Big Picture ” Nesselrodt and for the past few years, Legendary Joe Goddard !

It’s time to get ready to head over to the Stadium 🏟 and see just how many Golden Bears 🐻 can find their way to 🏡 🍽….

May 14th at Cavalier Park we are hoping to create 🙏 a Memory for the Ages!

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Each of these four Cavalier Senior Athletes have broken a career record during their Senior Season and we are officially inviting the group to Cavalier Park to toss out a Ceremonial First Pitch together.

Parents behind them on the mound and we will have a Kodak moment for sure!!

We know that Emma Leath will be there because she will actually be pitching later that night 🌙. We are hoping that the other three can join us as we have picked a day that right now would be wide open.

Here we have Class reckonizing Class !!!

I had never spoken to the Floyd County Softball Head Coach before yesterday and my first impression was OFF THE CHARTS !

Here’s Rick Nester speaking on the FCHS Skipper-

” Wes Starkey! I have known Wes for over 40 years and have never met a more top class person. It shows with him, his program and his girls! The Floyd program is top class.”

Starkey was in the middle of cleaning up his field after dropping a nail 💅 bighting 3-2 game versus one of his biggest rivals and he sees 👀 us having a little team mini celebration with the team and coaches in honor 🎖of Victory #56.

Coach calls over to us and asks if he can share in the celebration by offering his thoughts to Emma. I was so impressed by his gesture 👏 that I had to ask him if he would mind posing for a photo 📷 with her and naturally the answer was YES…

A OneofUs.Care moment if there ever was one !

Alone at the Top ! The Greg Maddux of High School Softball now sits atop of the Carroll County High School All-Time Wins list at 56 & counting !

With a bit of misdirection on numbers, Emma Leath was truly surprised to learn that she passed Sydney Nester on the All-Time Pitching wins in the history of Carroll County High School. Nester ended her stellar career with 55 total victories and 694 strike outs.

Leath is as driven as anyone that has wore the colors on The Hill and her Head Coach Rick Nester was trying hard to protect his Senior from mental overload down the stretch of her final season.

The chase for the career strike out total has been very public and when you add that to trying to be one of two Senior (along with Katherine Lindamood) leaders on a roster full of Freshman and Sophomores, you can see the cause for concern.

The topic of how surprised Leath was at the post game gathering Thursday night after the brief Team Celebration following the 57th victory over Floyd County came to light.

” I was caught totally off guard by the news that I broke the school record for wins,” Leath said. ” I have to thank Coach Nester, Coach Tobler and the defenses that have had my back the last four years. It is shown as an individual accomplishment but the wins belong to all of us. We still have a few more to add!”

Leath was limited in opportunities in her Freshman year due to Covid cutting a number of games out of the schedule but she has made up for lost time ever since. The Maddux comparison is spot one as the “Professor” was also extremely undersized and had to rely upon his location in winning 300+ Major League Baseball games over his career. Leath weighs in just over 100 pounds and when you see her head to the pitching circle it might be easy to chuckle at the thought of her having the ability to dominate the game the way she does.

Its not just one opinion of the Maddux / Leath duo as Coach Nester also made the reference when asked to describe his four year pitcher.

” Congratulations to an awesome young lady that has devoted so much time and effort into becoming one of the best athletes, not only in Carroll County/southwest Virginia but the state of Virginia!,” said Nester. ” I consider her to be the hall of fame Greg Maddux of softball. THE GIRL CAN PITCH!!! Just an example of this was displayed tonight! The bottom of the 7th with the tying run at second and the winning run at the plate, she battles to come back from a 3 and 1 count and strucks out the batter looking for the final out of the game on a change up! Before she threw the pitch, I told Coach Tobler that this is the game! Way to go Miss Emma Leath!”

The tag line for Maddux was ” Looks like an Accountant, Pitches like an Assassin” so maybe the comparable would sound like, Looks like she might should be playing with dolls, pitches like she’s after your Lunch Money…

The Lady Cavaliers now have six remaining regular season games left ahead of a possible 1 vs 2 District Championship game and then regional play. Leath now sits at 57 wins and 653 strikeouts, leaving her 42 shy of the second of the two records with six to a possible dozen games left. There’s no telling where the two final numbers will land but we can all hope its the State Tournament before we find out.

The next time the numbers can increase will be next Tuesday at James River and the team will celebrate the milestone next Friday (5/3) with the home crowd.

The photos 📷 appearing in this story are curtosey of Kelly Hawks and Velvet Leonard.

Lady Cavaliers claw out victory #13 at Floyd County, 3-2

Photo 📷 Credit – Kelly Hawks

Laiken Burnett stretching for a throw to first base.

Floyd – When it comes to both respectful and fierce rivalries Carroll County and Floyd County Softball would make any list and the latest meeting did not disappoint. The Lady Cavs held on for a Three Rivers District victory over their hosts Thursday night, 3-2.

The victory moved CCHS to 13-1 overall and 6-1 in district play, leaving the team in control of their own destiny.

The teams traded scoreless innings until the home half of the third inning when number nine hitter Addison Hilton lined a Home Run that barely cleared the fence in left centerfield. It was the first base hit allowed by Emma Leath (13-1) and the Senior closed out the inning without any further damage.

Floyd County starting pitcher Emma Biesterveld held the Cavalier line up in check her first time through, allowing just an infield single to Holly Miller. The second looks proved to be the difference as Emma Harman led off the fourth inning with a single and Katherine Lindamood reached on a hit batter, leading Coach Rick Nester to play his beloved “small ball “. Natalie Burress advanced the runners with a ground out and Laiken Burnett reached on a fielders choice when the Lady Buffaloes elected to throw home on her ground ball but Harman beat the throw to the plate to tie the score at 1-1. Brooke Webb picked up the second RBI as her sacrifice bunt plated Lindamood. The rally continued when FCHS committed their lone error on the ground ball and Miller collected the final RBI with her second single.

The three run rally took place with eight Cavaliers coming to the plate and only two balls making it to the outfield grass.

” Anytime that we play Floyd, it is always a game where 1 pitch can make the difference in who wins and loses,” said Nester.

“Tonight there were multiple times that came into play. Floyd goes up 1-0 and then we come back fighting and put the ball in play and got bunts down, scored 3 runs and went up 3-1. Floyd comes back in the 7th with 1 out and then Emma retires the next 2 batters. Victory! The girls did an outstanding job against a quality team.”

Leading 3-1, the Cavaliers still needed to record 12 more outs and Floyd County showed no signs of retreat. In the bottom of the fourth Leath was facing two runners in scoring position with just one out but closed out the potential rally with one of her eight strikeouts and a fly ball to centerfield that Miller tracked down.

Floyd County scratched out their second run in the bottom of the six inning when Kiley Hylton beat out an infield single and Winslet Vassar connected for her second consecutive double. Leath kept the score at 3-2 by getting a pop out to Addie Greene at short stop.

Miller collected three of the seven hits the Lady Cavaliers finished the contest with while Vassar was the only Lady Buffaloe to finish with multiple hits on a night when Leath limited them to just five.

Carroll County remains on the road next Tuesday night at James River. The Knights are the lone remaining team of the 10 CCHS opponents that they have yet to face after the initial contest was postponed due to weather conditions.