Wolves set bar high, create expectations for future softball players to chase

GLASFORD, Ill. — Ryan Lowe’s sunglasses hid his tears, but anyone listening could hear the angst in his voice.

The Pleasant Hill softball coach couldn’t hold back the emotion as he addressed his team following the Wolves’ 1-0 loss to Illini Bluffs in the Class 1A Glasford Sectional title game on Saturday.

“You’ve built something special,” Lowe said to the players, all of whom were shedding tears as well.

The Wolves became the first team in Pleasant Hill history to win a sectional game when they beat Havana 5-4 in the sectional semifinals last Wednesday.

“This group has been incredible,” Lowe said. “We went from nobody wanting to play us because we’re terrible to nobody wanting to play us because we’re good. You get good and you go play teams that are bigger and better. You get invited to triangulars and things like that because they want the competition.”

Saturday’s sectional championship also marked the final time Ryan Lowe will coach his daughter, McKinley, and she saved possibly her best performance for last. She carried a perfect game into the seventh inning, struck out 14 and gave up her only hit on Cora Ellison’s walk-off single.

Facing the No. 1-ranked team in the Class 1A team while battling tendinitis in her right elbow made McKinley Lowe’s final pitching performance all the more remarkable.

“We got a lot of therapy on (McKinley’s arm) this week,” Ryan Lowe said. “We had it taped up. For her to come out and deal like she did was unbelievable. I can’t ask for any more from her when she was hurting like that.”

The coaching staff debated starting Ava Wombles instead of McKinley, but McKinley gave a definitive answer.

“McKinley said she wanted the ball,” Ryan Lowe said.

Her tough-as-nails performance and the Wolves’ camaraderie set an example for McKinley’s sister, Charlie, who will be in seventh grade in the fall, and the rest of the junior high softball players to follow.

“Those (junior high) girls look up to these (high school) girls,” Ryan Lowe said. “They set a great example of how to play hard, have good sportsmanship and good charisma. These girls don’t even realize the legacy that they’ve left. We’ve got girls pitching down to second and third grade. They have no idea yet the impact they’ve had.”

Ryan Lowe will continue coaching even as McKinley moves on to play softball at Parkland College in Champaign, Ill., about 2 ½ hours from Pleasant Hill.

“I may have to lean on my assistant coaches a little more because I’m going to want to go watch McKinley play, but a lot of those are on the weekends so I can take off,” Ryan Lowe said. “There might be some long weekends, but I’m going to go watch her play when I can and keep coaching.”

While he doesn’t take all the credit for what the Pleasant Hill program has become, he’s not ready to step away.

“I’m not going to say that I’ve built this by any means, but we’ve built a program, and I hate to see it go,” Lowe said. “I think we could turn it over to people and it would be in good hands, but when you build something like this, you want to keep it rolling.

“It should be a lot of fun for the next few years.”