The tradition keeps growing for Gordon Lee softball
Mary Kate Pritchett and Bailey Miller played their final game for the Gordon Lee fast pitch softball program in Columbus on Saturday and like six other groups of Lady Trojan seniors that have come before them, they went out as state champions.
After dropping the Class A Public School winners’ bracket final to Georgia Military College Prep early Saturday morning, Gordon Lee would reel off three straight wins to claim the program’s seventh fast pitch state title, including back-to-back wins over GMC for the championship.
“This is awesome,” said Miller after climbing off the team’s charter bus back in Chickamauga about 1 a.m. Sunday morning. “It feels so good to finish my last game with a win in the state championship. I wish (2016 Gordon Lee softball alums) Emily (Armour) and Addi (Taylor) could have been there. It was weird with them not being there, but it was still good. Mary and I had a really good year and I’m glad it ended this way.”
Pritchett and Miller, who will continue to play softball together as freshmen at Chattanooga State next season, were just barely out of kindergarten back in 2004 when Gordon Lee won its first fast pitch state championship with a 3-0 victory over Brookstone in Columbus’ Olympic softball stadium.
Little did they know then that their high school softball destinies would be cemented that October day some 12 years ago.
Every Gordon Lee High School softball team since that 2004 squad, has played on the final day in Columbus. Not all of them went out as champions, but all of them have added to the growing legacy that is Lady Trojan softball.
Fourteen straight region titles. Eleven consecutive appearances in the championship finals. Five state runner-up finishes. Seven GHSA state titles. One softball dynasty. Through it all, there have been two constants.
The first has been head coach Dana Mull, the primary architect of the program for those past 14 seasons. She’s already won right around 400 games, give or take a few, coached numerous All-Region and All-State players and seen several of her players garner Player and Pitcher of the Year honors.
She should already be a shoo-in for the Georgia High School Coaches Hall of Fame. In fact, they should just go ahead and put her in now and leave extra room on her Hall of Fame plaque to add her future accomplishments.
The second one, as Mull herself explains, is expectations.
“Not mine necessarily, but the expectations we have as a group,” she said. “We’ve had some good kids come through
that helped build the foundation and set those high expectations.
“Each team is different, but each team wants to continue to live up to the standard that was set before them. Each team may have some of the same players, but each group of seniors is different and it’s always special for each group.”
A number of former Lady Trojans took to social media on Saturday to offer well wishes while the team was playing and were back on Facebook Saturday night to offer congratulations. Some were even in attendance in Columbus on Saturday to watch the 2016 Lady Trojans secure their own spot in GL softball history.
“I’ve had so many great kids, great players and great pitchers,” Mull added. “They’ve never quit and they didn’t (on Saturday), that’s for sure.”
Saturday’s championship, like the six others that have come before it, certainly
wasn’t easy. But perhaps no other program in the state is better equipped and better trained to handle such adversity and to answer the bell.
For this Gordon Lee team, it was about heart and guts as they leaned on each other and then lived up to the expectations set by those who came before them.
“It’s such an amazing feeling to go out as a champion in my final year,” said Pritchett, who dealt with her own adversity as she played the entire weekend through a bruised and swollen ankle after rolling it Thursday afternoon’s opener. “I was a state champion three times in my four years here and I wouldn’t have it another way than to go out this way as a senior.
“Gordon Lee softball has always been awesome and I wouldn’t expect anything less of this team. We had a great season and I wouldn’t expect less in the seasons to come from this program either.”
——— Class A Public or Class 2A for 11 consecutive seasons and have won six state championships in the last seven years, adding to their first fast pitch state title back in 2004.
And with all but two seniors returning, they will enter next season as a huge favorite to claim an eighth state title.
“Mary Kate (Pritchett) and Bailey (Miller) were great seniors and great leaders for this team and they did a lot for us,” Mull continued. “Everyone will miss them. It’s hard to think about next year right now because this was such a great group, but it is nice to know we have so many coming back next year.”
This also marks the third time in the past five seasons that Gordon Lee has beaten GMC twice in a row to win a state championship.
The Lady Trojans lost to GMC in the winners’ bracket semifinals in 2012, only to respond with five consecutive wins, including two final victories over the Lady Bulldogs in the championship.
The very next year, Gordon Lee’s last before a two-year stint in Class 2A, the Lady Trojans again lost to GMC, this time in the winners’ bracket final. Gordon Lee fought back with three straight wins on the final day of the tournament, the final two again at the expense of the Lady Bulldogs.