While we wait for the latest book 📖 to come back from the publisher, it’s a great time to work on one of the segments for the Softball / Baseball book. Here is the start of this one.

Carroll County High School is located just east of I-77 in Virginia, and while the most recognizable sports figure is longtime Virginia Tech University Football coach Frank Beamer, there are more than a few other rather notable former Cavaliers that shined on The Hill.

Erin Gibson and Alyssa Ervin both excelled on the basketball court with the latter leading the Lady Cavaliers to consecutive State Championships.

Head Coaches, Marc Motley, Howard Mayo, and Cindy Edwards have combined to win well over 1,000 victories and  baseball Skipper, Casey Burcham is operating at a level that looks like a college program. But for the time being, the focus will be on another veteran leader, Softball coach Rick Nester.

Nester is in his fifth decade of shaping young student athletes at Carroll County and has been blessed to work with not one but two of the most impressive hurlers in the schools history. Sydney Nester and Emma Leath possess every feasible pitching record in the 50+ year history of the high school.

The two young ladies went about their business in completely different fashion as the baseball comparison would be Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux. Two of the greatest of All-Time but on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Dave Quesenberry was the pitching coach for the Lady Cavaliers when Nester was taking care of business and offered this take on the mindset of the flame throwing Nester.

” There were times that Sydney could defeat a visiting team before the game even started,” said Quesenberry. ” The velocity of her warmup routine was enough for opponents to mentally give up on the idea of hitting her.”

Leath delivered every single varsity pitch across her four years of eligibility and did so with the touch of a surgeon. The Maddux comparison is spot on, and the pair treated the idea of issuing a base on balls to a batter as absolutely unacceptable.

Nester would go on to first pitch for the Wolfpack at North Carolina State before transferring to Marshall University of the Sun Belt Conference. During her final season with the Thundering Herd, the powerful righty found herself leading the country in D1 strikeouts.