Gaston College softball coach reflects on historic season
It's been a week since the Gaston College's historic softball season came to a close.
And Rhinos' coach Mike Steuerwald still has a hard time coming with a way to explain his team's success.
"What a great season," he said. "It's hard to put it into words and describe.
"When you look back on it, even just a few days after it's over, you realize just how special it was."
Gaston College finished with a 63-5 overall record and a 4th place finish in the 20-team National Junior College Athletic Association World Series in Yuma, Ariz.
It came in a season in which the Rhinos earned their first national record, set Region 10 records for overall victories and unbeaten league dominance and a school record for overall victories and consecutive wins.
"No matter what competition you're playing, 63-5 is really impressive," Steuerwald said. "With our schedule being as tough as it was, it's really special to win that amount of games.
"Then, to have the run that we had in the World Series and finish fourth in the country, I'm grateful that we got to experience the World Series and have that opportunity to have success there.
"And for us as a coaching staff, it gives you fuel in the fire to know how close you were to winning and competing for a national championship. We lost to the team that won the national championship and to the team that finished third in the World Series.
"It says a lot about this group."
An eight-person sophomore class that includes six two-year standouts were the primary drivers of that success, even as they got solid support from a strong freshman class.
Sophomores Kristyn Ezzo, Skye Harrington, Alayna Patrick, Grace Kealy, Sarah Johnson and Kendall Bradshaw and freshman Savanna Mullins earned first team Region 10 honors and freshman Mary Hinson was a second team Region 10 selection with Ezzo (pitcher of the year) and Patrick (player of the year) getting top individual honors.
In the World Series, Johnson and Mullins were all-tournament selections.
And as soon as the season ended, Kealy and Patrick received All-South Region honors.
Gaston College's fourth place finish marks the highest in school history - and fans cheered on the team far and wide.
A travelling party of 24 comprised of players, coaches and support personnel made a 2,092-mile flight to Phoenix and subsuquent 185-mile bus trip to Yuma, Ariz.
Fifty fans mostly family members and friends also made the trip to Yuma, Ariz.
Hundreds more following the team by watching livestreams of the games on the NJCAA or ESPN plus website or keeping up through social media or intenet game updates.
Gaston College faculty members and students arranged "watch parties" at Dallas' Tavern and Taphouse that's a mile from campus.
"I really want to thank all of the people that supported us," Steuerwald said. "We had a pretty special environment at our games and no matter if it was 105 degrees during the day or at 11:30 at night, they were cheering us on.
"And we felt a lot of the support back here with the watch parties and people watching online and all of the messages that we got."