SISK: A little charm and class

My favorite story

After a mediocre season, the Wilson Memorial baseball team went into the 2008 Shenandoah District playoffs desperately seeking a chance to return to its past glory. The problem was that Buffalo Gap stood in its way. The Bison lost the automatic Region B berth during the regular season to Luray.

Wilson pitcher Alex Fisher threw a no-hitter through five innings in the game on May 19, and the Green Hornets held on to a 1-0 lead going into the final inning.

In the seventh, Fisher struck out Gap’s Boone Jones but Wilson catcher David Gauldin dropped the third strike. Gauldin threw to first to try and get Jones out but put the ball in the outfield and Jones on second. Fisher was the regular Green Hornets catcher, but was called into pitch that night and, for a moment, it looked like the wrong move.

Jones advanced to third on a grounder and with two outs and a 1-2 count, coach Chad Coffey sent him home on a desperation play.

Fisher put the pitch in the dirt, but Gauldin saved it, squared up the base line and tagged Jones out at the plate to send Wilson into the Shenandoah final and the Region B playoffs.

Coach Derek McDaniel has a blunt charm about the way he talks about baseball and summed up his strategy the only way he knew how — with a cliché.

“You throw strikes, get ahead and play good defense, that’s the secret of baseball,” McDaniel said. “Well, it’s not a secret but that’s how it is played.”

Best Interview

Character shows more in a loss than it ever will in a win. After winning 26 games and a Group A, Division 1 title, Buffalo Gap found that out on a cold night in Naruna. William Campbell beat the Bison in the Region B, Division I title in dominating fashion on Nov. 21. Some of the players left the field with tears, but a group of seniors stood on the field one last time laughing.

Ryan Sheridan and Ian Rosenfeld stood out to me. Their smiles were as big as the day they brought that state title home.

“We’ve been playing since we were little kids, we knew we got our butts whipped,” Sheridan laughed. Rosenfeld agreed.

“That was the best team we have played in two years,” Rosenfeld said. “They deserved everything they got.”

That’s what Augusta County calls class.

Most telling off the field moment

Augusta County soccer took a hit this year.

Glen Anderson and Mike Dattilio both died unexpectedly during the soccer season, sending the entire soccer community into mourning.

Every player in the county had known the two and dedicated the remainder of their season to them: Riverheads especially. No one won a state title this season, but I’m sure Anderson and Dattilio were smiling.

Road trip I won’t forget

Ok, sorry to bring the Buffalo Gap loss to William Campbell up again, but I don’t think anyone will forget the weather.

It was 28 degrees at kickoff and that didn’t account for the wind. I didn’t warm up until the next day. And Sheridan’s camouflaged hand warmer he wore with his uniform was priceless. After the game he told me, “you can tell where I came from can’t you.”

I wish I could have seen

Shanda Brown’s 3-pointer that took down Turner Ashby during the region playoffs.  If someone has got it on video, I’m still waiting to see it. I was stuck in the office taking phone calls.

I wish I had been a fly on the wall

The day the Fort Defiance administration decided to remove Dale Spitzer I wanted to be standing outside the door. This was the one firing that baffled me. After so many years and so many successes, it didn’t make a lot of sense.

Sure the team hasn’t won a lot in recent years, but you can’t judge a high school coach on wins and losses because, well, it’s high school. Instead you look at what he does for the community and the players’ lives. Not many people who played for the veteran coach would say they turned out bad because of him.

Story for 2009

Will Southern Valley football rise from underneath the shadows of its brethren to the north? That’s what I want to know. The storm is starting to swirl, just look at it.

Fort Defiance, Stuarts Draft and Waynesboro will all have loads of experience and Rockbridge and R.E. Lee will both be tough again this season. It’s time for someone other than the Shenandoah District schools to get the spotlight. Also Wilson will begin its new chapter in the Southern Valley District adding another storyline.

Best quote I got

“Honestly, there’d be a lot of dead people if they bet their lives on that game. Right now, I don’t like to be thought of as Cinderella, I want the other team to be Cinderella and we are midnight,” Secrett Stubblefield about the Little Giants win over Turner Ashby.