North Jefferson News, Gardendale, AL

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May 31, 2012

Robert Carter: Gotta stop underestimating Blue Devils softball

By Robert Carter North Jefferson News

COMMENTARY — I seem to be making a bit of a career in not giving Mortimer Jordan’s softball team enough credit.

And for the second year in a row, the Blue Devils have made me pay, in a manner of speaking.

Last year, I gave the team little chance of getting back to the championship game of the AHSAA Class 5A State Tournament in Montgomery. The team had lost two of its stars — Morgan Estell to Auburn, where she made the All-Freshman Team of the Southeastern Conference; and Heather Parker to Wallace State-Hanceville, where she became a juco All-American.

So the conventional wisdom was that Jordan would make an early exit at Lagoon Park in 2011, perhaps even a “0-and-2 barbecue,” as my colleague Stacy Long from The Montgomery Advertiser likes to say.

They almost did just that, losing their very first game. Then pitcher Blair Johnson ate her spinach, and somehow threw her way through the loser’s bracket for the Devils’ third state title in four years.

Johnson pitched all but one of Jordan’s 48 innings in that tournament, with a seventh-grader named Bailey Murphy getting one inning of work in a blowout. (Remember that name — it’ll come back in a minute.)

As miraculous as that championship was, it would be even more so for the 2012 edition of the Devils to even get to the state tournament.

Johnson was off to South Alabama, along with teammate Alyssa Linn. Shelby McGraw was gone to Faulkner State. And the big-hitting shortstop, Danae Hays, was now prowling the infield at Rhoads Stadium in Tuscaloosa; she and her Alabama teammates will take their act to the NCAA Women’s College World Series.

The only standout from those champion teams remaining was center fielder Haylie McCleney. A heck of an athlete, but one star does not a softball team make — especially when that star is not a pitcher.

On top of all that, longtime coach Laura Rickman resigned in Decem­ber, to take a job with the Burkett Center for Multi-Handicapped Children and to have another baby of her own. That was probably the least of the Devils’ worries, because Shawn Maze — Rickman’s assistant and chosen successor — is more than capable and as level-headed as they come. No issues there.

So with suspect pitching to start the season, Maze’s game plan was to hold the fort as best as he could, and wait until Murphy finished her duty with North Jefferson Middle School and could move up to the varsity.

You don’t want to put too much on one player, especially an eighth-grader. But you can’t deny that Jordan’s fortunes took a marked turn for the better when she was called up.

Even so, it was still a tough road ahead for the Devils, and for the first time in nearly a decade, there was a distinct chance that they would not even get out of their regional, or perhaps even a tough area that included Curry and Hayden. Even Maze admitted as much — but only after the Devils’ sixth straight championship game.

Jordan not at a state tournament? Whatever would Miss Maddie, the longtime Field 1 scorekeeper at Lagoon Park, do?

Well, so much for conventional wisdom. The Devils breezed through the area and regional tournaments, as Murphy racked up strikeout totals. McCleney slap-hit and homered her way to a new AHSAA single-season batting average record.

And somehow, some way, Jordan was back in the state title game. Yes, they lost, after Murphy’s arm just flat wore out.

Okay, I give up.

McCleney will be gone to Alabama, but the Devils have lots of young talent coming up. And Murphy will only get better with age and experience. So I guess they’ll make it to Montgomery again, because they’re Jordan.

Must be the MoJo mojo.

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