Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend : The keepsakes from the opening chapter is now 40+ years old and a little knicked up but its still the starting point of my relationship with the game of Softball.

Tracy Beck was a power hitting, strike throwing machine back in the day and she had a similar disposition as me in that Tracy didn’t lack for confidence.

My rookie year in Coaching the game of Softball took place back in 1984 in a city named St.Peters, Missouri. Located in St Charles County, it was named the fastest growing County in the United States 🇺🇸. Not sure how these things were measured but watching the place develop over the years, it made sense to me.

My Parents Church Softball team seemed like a nice place to stay out of trouble while I regrouped from the Navy sending me home after acknowledging that they could not fix my leg that had been damaged a few years earlier. The team had never been successful prior to 1984 but when the season ended we were holding the trophy 🏆.

Both Alan Knight and Rick Nester began their coaching careers at the same time. Both did it by graduating from their High School, earning a degree in College and then returning to their High School, staying there for over 40 years.

We went into the post season tournament with a record of just 3-5 but things changed when Tracy recruited her younger Sister, Linda Beck, to join us for the stretch run. Linda played Rover in the outfield and chased down many a hard hit balls.

Tracy finished up with a 4-4 record, batted .617 and slugged eight Home Runs in an 11 game campaign. Linda batted .550 and hit 3 home runs.

While Tracy was funny and outgoing, Linda was highly competitive and a bit more serious than her Sister. There were plenty of other talented players in the team, including a mixture of young and old. Jamie Vanzant and Marsha Uldall both finished up batting over .500 and shined on defense.

We closed out our remarkable run with a convincing 24-6 victory over 1st Church and rode off into the Sunset 🌇. Roughly eight months later, Linda Beck agreed to become Linda Carter, which meant decades of Wonder Woman jokes. To this day, anyone she meets that’s over 40 will still have fun with it. Younger than 40 and you know Gal Godot as Wonder Woman.

Tracy became my Sister-In-Law and I retired from coaching the game I love and returned to playing it.

Retirement at the age of 21 ?? I won a Championship, met my Bride 👰and gained a Sister-In-Law in just one season so I didn’t see a way to top that story.

If memory serves me, my Sister Sharon played in three games as well back in 1984. After that incredible start I switched over to trying to promote the game and then I met Alan Knight down the road.

Just one nugget in a sea of nuggets for this project but its Nugget #1…

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : One year before 2015, Page County High School Softball Coach Alan Knight won 🏆 his 1st Title outdoors to go with his four Volleyball 🏐 crowns 👑

After a series of great seasons that ended short of the Promise Land, Page County High School Softball captured its initial State Championship under Alan Knight.

The school had captured the State Championship back in 1981, the year before Coach Knight took over the program. The victory ended a 33 year drought and set the table for the repeat in 2015.

Kate Gordon led a talented team to consecutive State Championships before taking her skill set to nearby James Madison University in 2016. Gordon played the game at a different level during her years in Shenandoah and would later have the opportunity to showcase her game by helping JMU reach the College World Series during her time in H’BURG.

Softball is a team sport and Gordon was far from being a One Man Band back then and it will be fun to find out how life turned out for everyone involved with 2015.

Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend : Page County Softball over the years included three State titles and a handful of really close calls.

2022 – State Runner Up after losing a pitchers duel versus Appomattox in the State Championship game.

Head Coach Alan Knight captured State Championships in 2014, 2015 and 2018 with the middle one being the focus for the book 📖.. But there are just as many close calls over the years for the Lady 👩 Panthers.

The team has made it to the State Tournament in three of the last four years with the setback taking place in a different round each time.

The Lady Panthers advanced all the way to the Championship game back in 2022 before falling to Appomattox.

In 2023, it was eventual State Champ 🏆 Tazewell that knocked out Page County in the State semifinals.

After falling in the Regional semifinals in 2024 to Central – Woodstock, Page County returned to the Big Stage in 2025. State runner up King William ended the season in the quarterfinal round.

https://gopsusports.com/sports/softball/roster/player/maddie-gordon

Maddie Gordon played a HUGE role in the 2018 State title in her Freshman year at PCHS and losing a season to Covid kept her from matching the pair of State Championships of older Sister, Kate.

This past season Gordon was one of four former Lady Panthers who performed at the collegiate level.

Four players playing at the next level shows the level of commitment that the players have to the game of Softball and the Page County program.

The gathering of information about the two programs and the effects from that day in June 2015 will be ongoing for months. If you are connected to either program and have a story to share, please reach out !

The list of the players and coaches from the Carroll County High side of Saturday June 13, 2015

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 !

While both Alan Knight and Rick Nester had a great day on Saturday June 13th, the Nester family 👪 had another reason for remembering that Day !

Another layer to the story, ” Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend ” comes in the form of there being a Wedding 💒 taking place later in the day back in Carroll County. The Nester family and the Goins family were set to become one large family 👪 that evening.

Adam and Kayla just celebrated their 10th anniversary and are the proud parents of three beautiful children. Both parents are involved with Coaching on The Hill and Adam just finished winning his initial Three Rivers District crown 👑 with his Junior Varsity Baseball team.

Kayla Nester is about to add Volleyball to her responsibilities with Basketball and we need to mention that little Sister, Raylee Goins is a current member of the Lady Cavaliers Softball program.

Part of the story has to be the time from the final out was recorded until Adam & Kayla said I do as Coach Nester worked his way back home in time for the ceremony.

Where are they now, ten years later, will be included with anyone who is interested in joining the conversation.

Nancy Sorrels while once again be involved with the book 📖 making process and this is exciting news for us. Her group up in Raphine were an absolute delight to work with. This will be the fourth time that we have taken a story from a High School and expanded it but its the first time that it will involve two Schools in the same story.

Page County High School captured its seventh State Championship game that day in 2015, with six of them belonging to Coach Knight. Carroll County captured the first Crown 👑 in the history of the School that opened back in 1969.

If you are just joining us on this project, we will spend the next few months gathering all of the information we can and then create a time-line that will walk people through the entire 40+ year relationship with the game of Softball.