Gaston College has surprised even itself with Region 10 softball championship

Years from now, folks will tell amazing stories about Gaston College's Region 10 regular season softball championship team.

After all, the truth really has been stranger than fiction for head coach Mike Steuerwald's team.

Consider that the team was playing Region 10 Division I competition with only two players back from its inugural club team roster, arguably its most talented all-around player was lost for the season due to injury after only six games that dropped the overall roster to 13 players and it has relied exclusively on a three-person pitching staff.

Perhaps sophomore Asheton Queen summed up the year best.

"I don't think anybody expected us to come this far," said Queen, a Gardner-Webb transfer who switched positions after North Carolina A&T transfer Jailyn Tineo suffered a broken hand after six games. "I don't think we expected to come this far."

And, yet, here they are at 36-6 overall and 13-1 in Region 10 with a regular season title wrapped up with two weeks remaining in the regular season.

Adversity played a role in the team's eventual success.

Losing the versatile Tineo after six games cost the team a player who was starting at shortstop and had played catcher at the NCAA Division I level.

It led to a couple of position changes - Queen went from third base to shortstop and Haylee Salter took the starting role at third base.

Two weeks later, what could've been a devastating loss turned into a season-saving turnaround surge that has seen the Rhinos play nearly flawless softball ever since.

On March 3, Gaston College was slated to open its Region 10 schedule with a doubleheader at USC Sumter.

The Rhinos roared ahead 8-0 after 1 1/2 innings and were ahead 9-4 after 3 1/2 innings before a flashback to last season derailed everything and led to a disappointing 16-10 loss.

A year ago, Gaston College committed 81 fielding errors that led to 110 unearned runs in its 20-game schedule.

That appeared to be happening again when fielding errors played a role in the Fire Ants' 12-run fourth inning rally that sparked their comeback.

"We knew we were better than that from a talent standpoint but could we put it together on the field?" Steuerwald said of the team's mood after losing the first game of the doubleheader to USC Sumter. "And the one thing with this group that's always been good is that, no matter what is going on, they've come in and worked hard each and every day."

Looking back, an indication of just how strange the defeat was can be revealed in the current league standings; Entering this week, that result remains Gaston College's lone Region 10 loss and is USC Sumter's only Region 10 victory.

"It does feel like a long time ago," Queen said of the loss. "But we weren't bonded yet. That was right after J had gotten hurt and we were all so beaten up about that."

But the bonding was underway and the response after the loss was a 11-0 victory in five innings with Brantleigh Parrott tossing a 3-hitter with 10 strikeouts.

It would be the first of five Region 10 shutouts fired by Parrott as she has turned from a projected closer into a dominant starter. (Just two days earlier Parrott had been named National Junior College Athletic Association pitcher of the week and two days later she would throw the first no-hitter in school history in a 6-0 win at USC Union.)

Currently, Parrott leads all NJCAA Division I pitchers in ERA (0.36) and strikeouts (231) and is tied for eighth in victories (18).

She's not alone in shining for the Rhinos this season.

An offense that generates 7.2 runs per game with a collective .320 batting average has been led by Parrott (.486 average, 53 RBIs, 18 stolen bases), Queen (.396 average, 28 RBIs, 26 stolen bases), second baseman Logan Lilly (.356 average, 29 RBIs), Salter (.333 average, 16 RBIs, 10 stolen bases), first baseman Serena Yalich (.331 average, 43 RBIs), outfielder Gabrielle Porterfield (.297 average, 26 RBIs, 32 stolen bases), catcher Gracie Brown (.253 average, 16 RBIs, 12 stolen bases) and outfielder Grace Manning (.226 average, 24 RBIs, 11 stolen bases).

And Parrott, Amiya Tomlinson (8-3 record, 4.53 ERA) and Tessa Hunt (8-3 record, 5.11 ERA) have handled all 276 1/3 innings of the pitching chores this season.

"I think it's great that the first year as an actual team we've won the region title," Queen said. "I'm so glad to be a part of that."

The Rhinos will look to extend their 13-game winning streak with their final Region 10 games in Saturday's 1 p.m. doubleheader at Spartanburg Methodist.