Star-Journbal Editor
Rod's Tire is rolling to a league championship, and it's anything but a quiet ride.
From the team's chain-link dugout at the Hillsboro sports complex, sing-song cheer-chants have been going non-stop since the game began.
Listen as 15 Hillsboro girls go, like, totally vocal for their teammate, Taylor Nikkel:
Forty two's the number!
(Repeat)
Taylor is her name!
(Repeat)
She's one of the reasons!
(Repeat)
We're gonna win this softball game!
Moments later, with teammate Brenna Dirks up, cheering continues:
Go Brenna, you're the one!
Hit that ball and run, run, run!
Round the bases you shall go!
First! Second! Third and home!
After Tena Loewen's run puts her team way ahead, she's chanted a question:
Tena! How do you feel?
To which Loewen loudly replies,
I feel special!
I feel great!
I just stepped on,
(everybody stomps)
home plate!
There's a special feeling when the 12-and-under girls are in full voice. An infectious mixture of hilarious laughter, and highly-carbonated self-confidence, (tempered by good sportsmanship, of course).
Far from the old, "We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!" and "Hey, batter-batter-batter, swing!" days, their cheer-chants aren't usually directed at the other team.
You could call them a tonsil-transmitted tool for team motivation.
But that doesn't mean the other team can't hear them.
(Heck-fire! The whole of Hillsboro can hear them).
After a few innings, the other team might be wondering, "Why can't we have that much fun?"
"That's the one thing about our girls," said Rod Koons, head coach and team sponsor of Rod's Tire. "It's a big part of the experience, having fun. If it isn't fun, girls check out right away. That's not saying anything negative about girls as competitors, though, because they'll go to war for you.
"But, after the game is over, they'll go to the other girls and talk about their earrings or the CDs they're listening to, which is kind of fun, too."
With its athletic plays and windmill windup pitchers, fast pitch girls' softball is rapidly becoming one of the nation's most cranking spectator sports. But according to Coach Koons not all softball teams chant and cheer like 12-and-under girls cheer.
"The 12-year-old group is the most intense at the dugout cheers," he said. "Once they get older, you don't hear it nearly as much. And the 10-and-under kids, they do the cheers, but they don't have the strong voices to belt it out yet. These girls are the kingpin at chants and dugout cheering, because they have the lung power, and the childlike innocence."
At the Cottonwood Valley League championships in Hillsboro Thursday, Hillsboro teams won the 10-and-under, and 12-and-under divisions. The Prudent Tours team won the 10 and under championship by defeating Marion. Allison Weber of Hillsboro was the 10 and under MVP.
A shutout by pitcher Courtney Weber and home run by Most Valuable Player Stephanie Sanders, lifted Rod's Tire over Marion, 9-0. After the trophy presentation and team picture, the team gathered in the dugout, so Coach Koons could re-cap the recreation league season.
"I'm proud of each and every one of you guys," said Koons, who also is vice president of the USD 410 board of education. "I'm proud that I've gotten to know you kids. There are some kids I'd never met before. Now when I see you on the streets, I can call you by your name.
"Next year you guys are all in junior high," Koons added. "Remember when you go to school that you guys were on a team together. And you accomplished a lot. And that's something you need to be proud of, because not everyone gets a chance to do that, to be part of a team, OK? You can be proud of that fact. You all did your part to help us get here."
Coach Koons gathered his girls in a circle for one more cheer, as timeless as the game itself.
"Say it real loud," he said. "Ready? Go!"
"T-E-A-M, Team!" they shouted, real, real loud.
