Marty Kirkland: For Lady Bruins, patience paid off

Published 10:48 pm Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Two months removed from Northwest Whitfield’s run to the Region 7-4A softball championship — and the Lady Bruins’ flirtation with a Class 4A state title — a little time to reflect only deepens what we already knew. Especially for a team that counted on first-time varsity contributors to fill half of its lineup and a freshman to deliver most of its pitches, Northwest’s 2009 softball season was something special.

It’s worth noting their coach was a rookie, too. And while Shane Ramsey will beat you to the podium every time to give credit to the players for finding success after a 2-6 start, his midseason turnaround might have made just as big a difference.

The final game of Northwest’s limp out of the gate was a 5-0 loss at Southeast Whitfield on Aug. 25; senior outfielder Kayla Piorkowski’s seventh-inning double was the only thing that kept the Lady Raiders’ Kinley Hallman from enjoying a no-hitter that day.

Frustrated with the offensive showing, Ramsey’s body language as he talked to his team in the outfield after the game told the whole story, even if you were watching from home plate. I couldn’t hear Ramsey’s words, but you didn’t need your ears to understand the message was serious.

When Ramsey took over for Tammy Lambert this past spring, he was stepping into the head coaching ranks for the first time. Since my arrival in 2005, I’d known him as a good-humored, laidback assistant for Northwest baseball coach Todd Middleton, and his demeanor was pretty much the same in three years as an assistant to Lambert. Almost always smiling and ready to give or take a little ribbing, I wondered how that pleasant personality would translate to leading a program, especially one where three consecutive trips to the postseason had raised expectations.

That day at Southeast, I had no more doubts that Ramsey could be stern at the right time.

“We started morning practices after that,” Ramsey said. “Our mentality changed a lot and some of the older players decided to become leaders after that game.”

Ramsey explained that he can afford to be a little more laidback in baseball because that’s Middleton’s machine to run. It’s Middleton who deals the discipline and makes sure the Bruins are focused. It’s Ramsey, meanwhile, who acts as a buffer of sorts, providing encouragement if someone takes correction a little too personal.

Well, one of Ramsey’s first smart moves was to ask Middleton — who led Northwest’s softball program earlier this decade — to be one of his assistants. In the fall, their roles are flipped. But showing he’s open to change himself, Ramsey admits to watching Middleton’s manner of encouragement and wondering if he was handling the mental side of coaching properly with the Lady Bruins.

“About halfway through the year, I realized instead of being the rah-rah, pump-them-up guy, I had to be the calming influence,” Ramsey said. “I challenged them, but if they made a mistake, I didn’t explode on them.”

Coaching is about correction. It’s about breaking down situations, identifying what’s wrong with your team or player and fixing it. But it’s also about patience and knowing that sometimes the middle of a game isn’t the best time to do that.

“I learned to kind of let them play things in a game rather than get on them for every mistake they made,” Ramsey said. “No. 1, they already felt bad, and No. 2, I wanted them to work through it. When I relaxed a little bit on them, that’s when they started playing well.”

They certainly did.

Slow starts have characterized recent seasons for the Lady Bruins, but they’ve put it together in time for the most important games, and that was also the case this year when veterans and young players found a way to mesh.

As the offense caught up to the stellar pitching of freshman Emily Boyd, The Daily Citizen’s 2009 All-Area Softball Player of the Year, frustration found itself in the rearview mirror.

Northwest won six games in a row after its loss at Southeast and went 5-1 in sub-region play to earn a top seed for the region tourney, convincing their first-year coach of their toughness with a 4-2 comeback win at Sequoyah in the process.

“That was the turning point when the young kids grew up,” Ramsey said. “Emily threw well. (Freshman outfielder Mykeah Johnson) had a really good game. … After that game, I could just see it in their eyes.”

Ramsey sees the same sort of confidence and determination on his players’ faces these days when the team hits the weight room for offseason workouts. Getting close to a state title wasn’t good enough for the Lady Bruins, and they want to celebrate a little more in 2010.

That’s OK with their coach, who’s glad to have extended the standard established before him.

“It’s fun,” Ramsey said of the current state of softball in Tunnel Hill. “You’ve kind of got some change in your pocket now. I know people wonder when it’s your first year, ‘How’s he going to do?’ … But our success was because of good players.”

He’s not wrong about that. But the guy who gave out so many pats on the back this season deserves one, too.