Coach Pete Ackermann says championship is a gift from seniors
By Wayne Harrison
Acorn Sports Writer

Shannon Van Vorst, Ashlee Freeman and Sara Radabaugh hugged their head coach Pete Ackermann and then their athletic director, Jan Hethcock, during post-game ceremonies honoring the Lions championship over Bishop Alemany in Irvine on Saturday.

"I think the joy they demonstrated was a selfless joy," Ackermann said of his three seniors, Van Vorst, Freeman and Radabaugh, who had graduated the day before the championship game. "They knew everybody had contributed and this was their senior gift to the school."

The Lions coach said the trio of seniors—Freeman and Van Vorst were the battery in the title game for the third straight year—earned their championship rings. "I think it’s a great reward for their perseverance, for sticking with it," Ackermann said.

The coach, too, was rewarded for his "stick-to-itiveness." After the game, he mimed the removal of an imaginary or proverbial monkey, taking it off his back and throwing it to the ground in view of the Oaks Christian crowd along the third base line at Barber Memorial Park.

"It wasn’t a relief, it was excitement," Ackermann said of the immediate aftermath of the championship. "I tried to instill in the kids the importance of just playing the game, as a game, as hard as they can and as well as they have mastered it."

The Lions’ coach recounted his three years at OCHS.

"The first year was a story book year and the second year everybody expected us to walk through it," he said. "We faced some adversity and a team (Faith Baptist) just flat-out beat us and it wasn’t our day, it was theirs."

That was then, this is now.

"I think it will ease up," Ackermann said of future expectations of the softball program, "just the whole pressure of Oaks Christian softball, now that they have attained this goal. I think they’ll be less focus on having to prove ourselves in the future so we can just go about playing our game and enjoying it for what it is."

Ackermann said the championship should be shared, in a sense, by former players of his, some who were at the game in Irvine.

"When I looked around the stands and saw my players from years back, and the girls that played for me at Oaks Christian and other places, I think there was a kind of bond," he said. "I think they shared in the victory."

Ackermann said having Jan Hethcock, the OCHS athletic director, in the dugout throughout the playoffs bolstered his team.

"What he brought was the calming influence," Ackermann said of Hethcock’s presence. "During the highs and lows throughout games, he was a great supporter. His countenance in the dugout lent a real positive aura."

His fellow coaches at OCHS also deserve credit, Ackermann said.

"The camaraderie of the coaching staff and their willingness to share athletes and to work out a relationship to see what’s better suited for certain athletes—what would be best for them—the giving and sharing is what, I think, has led to a lot of the success of our program this year," he said.

Four Oaks Christian teams, three in the winter (boys’ and girls’ basketball, and girls’ soccer), plus the softball team this spring, won CIF championships this year.

The Lions softball team was large in quantity, 18 players deep, because there was no JV team this year.

"We had such a wide variety of kids, and we didn’t cut anybody from the team," said Ackermann. "We meshed this group of 18 girls into one team and from No. 1 to No. 18 they all contributed. They all worked hard including the subs who didn’t get a whole lot of playing time down the final stretch.

"They worked just as hard in practice as the starting nine."