Trying to get most veteran coaches to single out the best team they have ever worked with typically is akin to asking a parent to name his or her favorite child.
But unlike many of his coaching peers, Clifford Kirk disregards political correctness. So when Soddy-Daisy’s longtime softball coach was cornered to compare this year’s team to any of the crackerjack teams he’s had in the past, he never hesitated.
“Obviously we’ve got work to do, but top to bottom this might wind up being if not the best, one of the best we’ve ever had,” Kirk said. “A couple of years ago we had a few really good players that kind of carried us, but the difference now is, from one through nine in the lineup, there’s no dropoff. And we’re pretty deep, too.”
Coming from a coach who has won six Class AAA state championships with the Lady Trojans, including four this decade, and two with Hixson before taking over at Soddy-Daisy, those are worrisome words for the rest of the state’s softball teams.
Like baseball, softball is a stat geek’s dream and the Lady Trojans’ numbers have been staggering. With a 31-1 record, they have outscored opponents 255-8, allowing just five earned runs. In their loss to Ooltewah, the lone run scored was unearned and Soddy-Daisy is 2-1 against the Lady Owls.
Three starters are batting better than .500, and as a team the Lady Trojans are hitting around .460. What’s scariest is the fact that the Lady Trojans’ two main pitchers are a sophomore and a freshman whose combined earned run average can’t be seen with a microscope. Sophomore flamethrower Kelsey Nunley is 17-0 with a 0.15 ERA and 118 strikeouts in 91 innings pitched, while freshman Tori Denayer is 13-1 with a 0.32 ERA.
“Kelsey is going to be a big-time Division I prospect, and I think Denayer can be, too,” said Kirk, who has had more than 100 players sign college scholarships.
“But what’s even better for us is we’ve got two more girls coming up from the middle school next year who should be really good pitchers for us.
“When you win as much as we have,” Kirk added, “you start to play a little looser and with a lot of confidence, and that does make a difference. I think losing that game, even though we shouldn’t have lost it, has helped us because it took the pressure of being undefeated off.”
The Lady Trojans moved up 11 spots to No. 25 in the latest ESPN Rise FAB 50 national rankings. They are part of a loaded field for Ooltewah’s Lady Owls Choo Choo Classic, which begins today. Six of the teams in that tournament played in the state tournament last year, and that doesn’t include the Lady Trojans, who failed to qualify for the first time in 12 years after losing to eventual state champion Riverdale in the state sectionals.
“I talk about that loss to Riverdale every day,” said Kirk, the only softball coach in state history to lead a program to back-to-back Class AAA state titles three times, doing so with Hixson in 1987-88 and with Soddy-Daisy in 1999-2000 and in 2006-07. “We thought then, and I still believe, we were the better team and should have won. But it’s made us want to work harder and get back there. That’s what we expect every year.
“We’ll play a lot of games this weekend and then every day but one next week, and like I said we’ve still got work to do, but this program is something a lot of people are proud of, and I think this group is going to wind up being one of those everybody remembers and talks about.”