Players Make Their Mark in School, Region; Roadblock to Nationals Still “Disappoints” Coach and Team
–by Steve Carpenter, Kirkwood News Service
There is a tangible, pervading tinge of disappointment around Joe Yegge’s office. It’s a given for a competitive person in a deeply competitive role, a guy who cut his leadership teeth at Indiana State. Given that sense of dismay, you wouldn’t know the Kirkwood Community College Softball program had just broken team and season records.
Broken? Make that smashed. Erased. Obliterated.
The Eagles women closed the books on 2009-10 with 55 wins. That is 10 better than any other season, going back to the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Their total season record of 55-6 equates to .902, a percentage nearly unheard of in college programs. The team also set a win-streak record of 25 games this past season.
Then there are the shutouts—27 of them. Six no-hitters from one pitcher alone, Amanda Lambrecht, who also threw two perfect games in that total.
The names of this year’s players stand out in page after page of the Kirkwood official Softball Records print-out. There they are in bold type, usually near the top with “2010” standing out in the statistical pantheon of athletic pride.
But there is that gnawing disappointment, the shock and realization that anything can happen on any given day. In the case of Yegge and his team, that day was May 1, 2010.
May Day. Perennial rival team Iowa Central stopped the Eagles juggernaut cold in two games, 1-0 and 2-0. The number 11 nationally ranked team had halted number 2. Iowa Central would later lose to Iowa Lakes, the Lakesters moving on to districts.
Joe Yegge had to use the word one more time, then he turned philosophical.
“Yes, it was a disappointment to have the season end that way. But I have to still say it was a great season. This sophomore class is responsible for building an even stronger tradition for Kirkwood Softball. I know a few of the girls are still taking it hard, but I told them I am the proudest person around and honored to have been able to coach a group like them,” he said.
When pressed for high points in the benchmark 2010 year for Kirkwood, Yegge is quick with some specifics.
“Oh, my—Jamie Davis’s perfect game she threw against Vermillion of South Dakota. She struck out 14 of 15 batters, and most of them were three-pitches. There was the win over Iowa Central at home, when Molly Link hit two home runs. The day we played Southeastern and Molly hit four home runs, That put her over the 100-hit mark on the season. She now has the best single-season record for our program,” he added.
Yegge also holds a special admiration for the players graduating this month, amid all their new record-book marks. “It is very special to me to look at what these young women have done,” the three-year Kirkwood coach observes. “This is my first recruiting class. How could we know they would have gone on and left this big legacy in our record books? It is truly amazing, and I’m proud to have shared that with them.”
That record-breaking class is now destined to take the Eagles momentum to several notable college programs. Kylee Knop returns to her home state of Georgia to play at D-II University of South Carolina-Aiken. Molly Link will go to Winona State University of Minnesota, also D-II. Carlie Schnoebelen will study and play just a few hours north, at Minnesota-Duluth. Heather Moore will stay in Iowa, a student-athlete at Grand View College in Des Moines. Chelsea Parrish is also headed back the Peach State, to play for NCAA Division I Savannah State University.
The team and coach can also take comfort in an armload of NJCAA All-Region honors. Jami Miller, Jamie Davis, Molly Link, Kylee Knop, Amanda Lambrecht and Carlie Schnoebelen were all voted First Team All-Region. Chelsea Parrish and Melissa Walls got the nod for Second Team, with Shelby Dougherty and Brandee Bohr earning Honorable Mention. Several Eagles have also been nominated for NJCAA All-American honors, with those decisions coming yet in May.
So what will Joe Yegge and the Kirkwood Softball program do for an encore to 2009-10? There is the constant awareness that for coach and players, some other team is headed to Normal, Illinois for the D-II Nationals instead of them.
Yegge leafs through the 40-plus pages of the Kirkwood Softball record book once more. He smiles and observes that some of those records—shutouts, perfect games, season runs, home runs—were made by his first-year players. He tosses the book back on his desk and gives a tired but hopeful chuckle, a classic coach’s observation.
“You know, records were made to be broken.”