Five years ago five high school seniors from the West decided to sign with a first-year head coach at a private school in the Midwest.
Kate Drohan was taking over a team with a losing record the year before. She replaced the namesake of the field where the Wildcats play, Sharon Drysdale, after serving under the Northwestern legend for four seasons.
But somehow Drohan talked Kristen Amegin, Ashley Crane, Jamie Dotson, Courtnay Foster and Sheila McCorkle into coming to Evanston. And after four seasons, they have helped build a softball powerhouse.
The five players have compiled a record of 141-67 and have earned trips to the NCAA tournament every year.
“I could not have set expectations this high,” Foster said. “It’s been really awesome.”
Senior Day came early this year – it was this past Saturday – which was even before NU’s Big Ten home slate was complete.
The Cats had a doubleheader against Purdue waiting the next day (they won the first game before the second was cancelled due to weather), a televised home contest against Notre Dame on Tuesday and a final home contest Thursday against Loyola Chicago. NU finishes its season with five road series in a row, with contests against Big Ten-leading Michigan State, defending national champion Michigan and DePaul, the team that knocked NU out of the NCAA tournament last season.
But Saturday’s Senior Day game wasn’t completely business as usual: The quintet of senior fathers sung the fifth-inning stretch on a platform down the first base line with the team watching. This garnered smiles, not tears.
With such high hopes for the rest of the season, overall this was almost like any other game. The seniors may get sentimental when their careers at NU are over, but they don’t think that’s coming anytime soon.
“I enjoyed having Senior Day earlier because it wasn’t too emotional knowing that we have so much of the season still left,” Dotson said. “We plan on going to the World Series, so this is only really halfway for us.”
Even though the Cats don’t want to think about it yet, it’s time to realize what this group of seniors has done for the softball program. The four position players in this class, Amegin, Crane, Dotson and McCorkle, have started every game this season, while Foster leads the team in wins.
Amegin is NU’s career home run and walk leader. Crane is a two-year starter. Dotson set the Cat’s single-season RBI record last season. McCorkle has started the last three years. Foster is just 70 strikeouts away from 1,000.
When the season ends, Drohan’s first class should take the time to see what they’ve left for NU. The coach said she is not looking to replace this class, but how could she? There won’t be another group that comes to play for an untested coach and revives a program – that can only happen once.
It would be fitting for the members of this class to end their careers in Oklahoma at the College World Series. The Cats have shown they have the talent to get there, as they defeated No. 1 UCLA earlier this year.
But no matter how this senior class’ final season ends, the five players have left their mark. They changed NU from a softball program that did pretty well some years into a national powerhouse with title aspirations.
Games can be won and lost, but distinctions like that can’t be taken away.
Former deputy sports editor Abe Rakov is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].
