'A good ride' ends in the right place

Hernando softball coach Ernie Chatman had told his players that what ultimately will matter isn't so much how they finished their run, but where they finished it - in the state title

By GREG AUMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 14, 2000

Perhaps running more than a dozen marathons has given Ernie Chatman some perspective in knowing how to judge a race as a whole and not by just one segment.

Looking back on a marathon of a season -- not 26 miles, but 27 wins, a school record -- Chatman said Friday what he had reiterated to his players a day earlier: What ultimately will matter isn't so much how Hernando finished its run, but where it finished it.

Only two schools in each classification actually reach the finish line, after all the others have dropped off days or weeks earlier. So while the Leopards are disappointed by their 7-1 loss to Bartow in the Class 3A championship game Thursday in Auburndale, they also couldn't think of a better place to end their season.

"It was a good ride," Chatman said of Hernando's late-season 11-game winning streak, which carried the Leopards three victories farther than any fast-pitch team in county history.

The team's only two seniors, Katye Altieri and Beth Chatman, were smiling after the game, not because of anything on the scoreboard except Hernando's presence there.

"Losing is not fun, but losing this way is fun," said Beth Chatman, who had helped the Leopards to the regional playoffs in her first three seasons.

"We had nothing to lose," said Altieri, whose RBI single scored Hernando's lone run in the sixth inning. "(Bartow) has been here, what, four years in a row? We gave it our best shot. We didn't get shut out. Yeah, we could have played a lot better, we could have given them more of a show."

Coach Chatman went through Hernando's records Friday and found that this week marked only the seventh time in 111 years that a Leopards team was able to finish in the top two in the state. There was a track championship in 1914, a baseball title in '67 and a slow-pitch softball championship in '84, both under coach Tom Varn, for whom Hernando's home softball stadium is named. The Leopards won state titles in golf and cross-country in '97, took second in cross country a year later, and now this year's runner-up honors can join the list.

"This team right here, I wouldn't want to come here with anyone else," said junior pitcher Chrissy Hartley.

Just the same, Hartley could have a chance to return to Auburndale with nine other returning players next season. With Hartley (15-2) back on the mound and sophomore Kimi Olmstead returning to the form that saw her set a team record with a 0.43 ERA her freshman year, Hernando would have solid pitching and an experienced lineup to build on.

"I've learned a lesson, that when you start predicting what will happen next season, people can take things the wrong way, and you always have things you don't expect that happen," Chatman said. "So, I don't try to predict the future anymore."

Who could have predicted last year that third baseman Jamie Kunkel, a transfer who had batted .148 at Pasco, would bat .355 this season, with two hits in each of Hernando's last two games? Who would have foreseen Hartley, penciled in at shortstop before the season, becoming a dominating pitcher who would win conference player of the year honors?

And even a month ago, it might have seemed far-fetched for the Leopards to not only validate their No. 3 state ranking, but prove themselves even better than that in advancing to the state title game.

"Sometimes, the softball gods smile on you," Altieri said.

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