Story by DARIUS THIGPEN
Documentary by CHRISTIAN FOX
LongwoodLancers.com
 
Swagger, determination, camaraderie, hard work, loyalty – and cornrows apparently – all define the 2017 Longwood softball program. While the woman herself, head coach Kathy Riley, declines to call it such, allow me to say it in her place: Longwood softball is a dynasty.
 
This past weekend I was on the radio call as the Longwood softball program clinched its fourth Big South Championship since joining the conference just five seasons ago. Less than two months ago, few would have believed that could happen. After struggling to a 1-5 start in Big South play and a series loss to last-place Presbyterian, most counted out Longwood citing a 'rebuilding year,' believing this would be the year that the Lancers, who had won back-to-back Big South titles, would be dethroned.
 
Instead, we saw a team '#UN1TE' from its midseason woes and battle back to not only win a third straight Big South Championship, but do so by improbably winning 13 of their final 15 games, including four of those over the top team in the conference, regular-season champion Liberty, whom the Lancers defeated 4-2 in the championship game.
 
What made the turnaround possible, what pushed the Lancers to tear through the Big South Championship once again is about much more than the adjustments they made this season. It's about the deeply ingrained swagger, determination, and camaraderie that Longwood softball has developed over two decades under Riley's leadership.
 
Longwood's 2017 Big South Championship was 20 years in the making.
 
To watch Longwood softball is to watch confidence – swagger – in action. Winning four championships in five years will do that for you. So will playing for a coach as big time as Riley, who over the past 20 years has turned Longwood softball into a self-sustaining powerhouse driven by a winning culture that pervades every veteran and newcomer that dons a Longwood uniform.
 
Every time the Lancers take the field, they expect to win. It's a form of swagger that speaks to confidence, not the cocky bravado usually assigned to that word, 'swagger.' It takes swagger to step into the box with the bases loaded, game on the line, and come up with a go-ahead double like Karleigh Donovan did against in the semifinals against Liberty. It takes swagger to spin a complete game in a winner-take-all championship bout and hold the Big South's top offense to two runs, like Elizabeth McCarthy did in her final game at Lancer Field.
 
But for Longwood softball, that swagger is earned. They aren't always the most talented group on the field, but they outwork anyone they come across. That starts at the top with Riley, who sets the tone by implementing routine 6 a.m. lifting sessions and practices that begin before the sun is up. Those habits are emblematic of the blue-collar mentality that has long driven Riley and has translated to the entire program.
 
Perhaps that's why the program is so beloved and celebrated in Farmville. The way Kathy Riley and her players attack their jobs and conquer their daily routines resonates with anybody who takes pride in their work, whether they deliver lectures in a classroom or work on cars all day. The support Longwood softball has generated in the Farmville community was on full display last week at the Big South Championship, when the Lancers drew more than 500 hometown fans per game to Lancer Field.
 
That's not even considering the gargantuan effort Longwood's own staff put forth to host the Big South Championship, which in my experience, was the best-run production of any I've been to in any sport.
 
It was Steve "Lancer Pants" Robertson putting on a show. It was Joe Kaminsky and Jamal White doing the dirty work (figuratively and literally), and Alpha Jones and his grounds crew doing the dirty work (most certainly literally). It was the team's SID Todd Lindenmuth's tireless efforts to pull the spotlight toward the program, and Michelle Shular and Troy Austin's efforts along with the entirety of the Longwood athletics department. Not to mention the FOOD (thank you, Grant Avent)!
 
And the tarp that was pulled on and off the field, I don't know, seven times in five days? Those same people were out there rolling and unrolling, folding and unfolding, through rain and mud, cold and wind, with smiles on their faces. Simply having the opportunity to stand on the same field as Longwood softball has that effect on people.
 
That speaks to another piece of the equation for Longwood's softball success, and that's camaraderie. I can't think of a better example of the bond that unites all of Longwood softball than the relationship between Longwood's two aces, Elizabeth "Biz" McCarthy and Sydney Gay.
 
How many times do you hear of teammates not getting along because both want to be the alpha? You won't hear it with those two because McCarthy and Gay, like all of the members of this softball team, root for one another and want to see one other succeed. Even when one is in the circle in the other's place, you won't hear a single person in the stadium cheering louder for their counterpart than those two.
 
When Gay went on a roll in the 2016 Big South Tournament, on her way to MVP honors and taking away starts from McCarthy in the circle, it was McCarthy who doled out advice to the then-freshman pitcher. When McCarthy was in the middle of her own MVP run in the 2017 Big South Tournament, Gay was one of her loudest supporters (even louder than the great Chip McCarthy, who NEVER misses a chance to watch his daughter pitch).
 
And of course I'd be remiss in highlighting the most visible representation of the teams' camaraderie, which was a major highlight of the tournament last week. I'm talking about Kathy Riley's tightly-wound braids.
 
On the trip to play at Liberty in the regular season, the team braided everyone's hair—Lindenmuth and Riley included—and went on to win the first game of the series. So the braids came back for Riley the next game (but fortunately for him, not Lindenmuth). The team split a doubleheader with Liberty to win the series. The braids stayed in at Radford, and then the Lancers swept the series, with the final games on ESPNU. The cornrows stayed in for the tournament and Allen Ivers…I mean Kawhi Leon…I mean Kathy Riley came back with an added chain of beads in her braided hair that read "Longwood Lancers."
 
Longwood went 8-2 with the braids. Camaraderie requires an all-in attitude, and for Coach Riley she was all-in with her hair.
 
But it's not all fun and cheers and chants from the dugout. The Lancers put in work. They treat practice like successful people treat the work day: punch in and get down to business until it's closing time.
 
I've spent plenty of time out at the softball field at random times, whether it was working on something in our mobile broadcast studio for the Big South Network, or setting up cables to test cameras, or shooting a commercial with Lancer Pants for the Big South Tournament. Kathy Riley was there every single time. Not just monitoring or overseeing a practice or hitting drill, but getting her hands dirty. She throws batting practice. She hits ground balls. She takes secondary leads and shows the right way to break for second base. Even in the 24th year of her head coaching career, Riley doesn't mind a little clay on her person.
 
That goes for both on and off the field, by the way. She's spent many a day with her lawn equipment manicuring the shrubbery in front of Tabb Hall, the Athletics building on campus. She has painted hallways, and she's scrubbed floors. In the days leading up to the tournament she busted out the weed whacker over in the parking lot area by the ball fields.
 
That kind of attention to detail and a willingness to work when the cameras aren't pointed your way carries over to the softball players.
 
Take, for instance, junior outfielder Glenn Walters. Two days before the tournament, I was over at the softball field setting up for the Big South Network broadcast with students Colby Dunaway and Nick Lewis. With no coaches in sight, Walters was out there working on hitting to all fields. No, not out there messing around, holding her own personal home run derby. She was working on staying within herself and spraying the ball all over the field. It was a gorgeous day, and she could have been doing close to anything, but she chose to get in extra cuts, at no one's direction but her own.
 
In Sunday's win against Liberty, Walters put a ball in play that allowed the eventual championship-clinching runs to score on an error. It wasn't flashy, but it got the job done—the epitome of Longwood softball.
 
Coach Riley said it herself that the team, whether this year or in past seasons, may not always be the most gifted, but they're mentally tough and will always compete.
 
This wasn't a wire-to-wire first place team. Longwood had its struggles this season. Don't forget that in their climb to the top, the Lancers slipped many times. On April 3, they were in last place in the Big South. One and a half months later, they were hoisting the Big South trophy.
 
Riley said the legacy of this team will be its resiliency. They fought through offensive woes, injuries, and an uncharacteristic inability to come back from deficits. But instead of simply accepting 2017 as a "lost season," they rolled up their sleeves, went to work and got better.
 
Punch in and get down to business until it's closing time. That mentality is about more than simply winning softball games. Donovan says the 6 a.m. practices provide a mental training ground for life beyond softball, beyond college, when early wake-up calls are the norm and juggling the never-ending onslaught of responsibilities is simply expected, not praised.
 
Riley makes that known to her players, which only strengthens their buy-in to the process. The loyalty shown by Longwood softball's alumni is evidence of that. You don't even have to look into the stands to find former players.
 
Take Megan Baltzell, a legendary slugger whose name still sends shudders down the spines of Big South coaches and media members alike. After her All-American career at Longwood from 2012-15, she went on to play BASEBALL for Team USA at the 2016 Women's Baseball World Cup in South Korea. Yet where was Baltzell during Longwood's 2016 season, and during every postseason game? Cheering on her former teammates from the stands. In 2017 you could find her in the dugout and the first-base coaching box as a member of Riley's staff.
 
Then there's Emily Murphy, another all-time Lancer great who, alongside Baltzell, helped make Longwood the dynasty of the Big South from 2013-16. Murphy, a scholar-athlete and supremely talented shortstop, has a wealth of career options in front of her. But here she is, in Longwood's dugout, earning her fourth Big South Championship ring, only this time as a member of the coaching staff.
 
This past weekend couldn't have been better. The fact that the conditions turned for the worse for a day and that this tournament was still one for the ages only personifies the lure of the 2017 Longwood softball team. Plus, it made the picture-perfect conditions on Championship Sunday — on Mothers' Day, no less – seem that much more spectacular.
 
Farmville, Lancer fans, and softball supporters everywhere — you should be incredibly proud of what the 2017 Big South Tournament in Farmville was, and you should be 100 times prouder of these young ladies. For a fourth time in the past five years and for the third straight year, they represent all of us on a national stage. They are batting .800 since joining the Big South and show no signs of slowing down. If that's not a dynasty, I don't know what is.
 
 
#WoodYouBelieve