Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Donna Nester checks in with a thought from June 13, 2015!

You posed the question “When Donna said I do at her wedding to Rick Nester, I wonder if she knew the adventure to come?” The answer,

“I certainly did not!” I did know that I was one lucky lady, and I had definitely found the perfect guy for me! Adventure…absolutely! The 2015 softball season was an adventure for sure, especially when you add in the wedding of Adam and Kayla on the same day as the state championship game. We knew the 2015 team had the potential but in January-before the softball season even began-who would have thought that a June wedding would pose a conflict with softball? As the games of that magical season rolled by and the victories mounted, I began to get a little stressed at the possibility of a same day state championship game and a special wedding.

The excitement for both continued to grow and the closer we came to June the more people were asking, “How are you going to do both?” I wasn’t willing to miss either one! Thankfully, the game was scheduled for 10:00 am and the wedding for 5:00 pm. Of course, softball was in Lynchburg and the wedding was in Cana! I said, “If we’re not back by 5:00, they’ll just have to wait on us!” I felt everyone would understand. As it turned out, we had two victories that day! We probably would have celebrated a little longer at the ball field but didn’t want to be late for the wedding. An added adventure for the day was a plane ride with Ricky Thomas to get us back home and to the wedding as quickly as possible. We arrived with some time to spare and the wedding was beautiful! What an awesome day! I don’t recommend purposely scheduling two major events in one day, but for us it was magical from beginning to end!

When Donna said I Do at her Wedding 💒 to Rick Nester, I wonder if she knew the adventure to come ? We have the Page County roster and information about the Pilot of the airplane ✈ in today’s snipit from Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend

Donna Nester, Tammy Tobler and Lauren Alley in 2023 at Cavalier Park.

Earlier we listed the complete roster for Carroll County and today we do the same for Page County…

Kare Breeden

Alicia Campbell

Morgan Cloude

Kate Gordon

Cassie Hutton

Savannah Jones

Lauren Kite

Danni Mauck

Rachel McCoy

Nicole Mongold

Savannah Plum

Hailey Sampson

Morgan Treger

___________________________________

Page County played their game opposite of High School graduation 🎓 and Carroll County played theirs opposite a pair of Weddings back home.

CCHS player Kayla Robinson along with Head Coach Rick Nester and his Bride 👰 Donna, needed to get back for their Sons ceremony as Adam was getting ready to tie the knot with Kayla Goins.

Ricky Thomas owned a plane and flew the Nester’s back from Lynchburg that day and that part of the adventure will be a large part of the after the games section. I am assuming the fact that Kayla Goins Nester was an Athlete herself might have made it easier to relate to the process of the day.

The Nester family had quite a day back on June 13, 2015 ! We will attempt to capture the day of a lifetime for them and many others !

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Alicia Campbell of Page County High School sure could play Softball and her Father 👨, Arthur has a place in the OneofUs.Care Hall of Fame !

The Pavillion on the right in the Photo 📷, exists today because of Arthur Campbell!

Alicia Campbell has bookend State Championships to her credit as the only left handed Catcher to ever play for Head Coach Alan Knight was on the Diamond in June 2015 as a Freshman and in 2018 as a Senior.

I hear that a new baby 👶 has expanded the Family 👪 here recently and the little one was born into a great Family Tree 🌳

We will have plenty to share about Alicia but the fun story is when the left-hander first picked up a Softball bat she swung it as a lefty before Dad had her switch sides of the plate.

There will be roughly 100 stories by the time we are done and I’m looking forward to sharing more about the Campbell family !

Dennis Zimmerman adds that her nickname was Mooch….

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.