NC made all the right moves, including to 3A

The answer: the state softball tournament. The question: Did North Central High do the right thing moving to the 3A ranks this year?

“We’re pretty solid, but if we were 4A, we wouldn’t even have made districts,” said Herm Marshall, the Indians’ veteran coach. “Now the school is excited, the kids here are excited for (our team). It’s just an exciting time of the year for us.”

Marshall knew before the year started his team had a chance to be good – “We were expecting a pretty good year where we could compete against most other teams,” he said – but he didn’t have an inkling the Indians could earn a berth in their first state softball tournament. For that, he gives some credit to the classification change.

“It gives us more of a chance when we do have a good team,” Marshall said. “If not, we could have a pretty good team, but the impact of that 4A group would make it tough for us to just get in.”

But the main reason NC had a chance was a core group of seniors – including four-year varsity performers Brianna Scott, Jami Schibel and Ashley Sevier – and four freshmen, including pitcher Kelsie Vallies, who is still trying to shake the effects of pneumonia.

“She’s not 100 percent,” Marshall said of Vallies, who won two regional games. “She’ll be ready this weekend. She tells me she’s fine, but I know she’s not, because she always real bubbly, and she’s not that way right now.”

If she is right and the Indians play to their potential, they may be the answer to another question: Which was the first NC team to win a state softball game?