ROANOKE RAPIDS — If there was any doubt about how serious softball is to the Roanoke Valley then look no further than what happen this past weekend in Windsor. The Roanoke Valley brought home four of the five division titles, the first time many district titles have been won in the same season. For three days the town of Windsor might as well had been Roanoke Valley East as the local players put together a hostile take over of the Bertie county seat.

Roanoke Valley all-star softball coaches pose with their hardware after Sunday’s district championship games in Windsor. Pictured, left to right: Bobby Martin, U10s; Sam Conner, U12s; Bill Ewers, U14s; and Billy Smith, U16s. All four teams advanced to next week’s state tournament. Randy Wrenn | Daily Herald Advertisement

“I was proud of the girls and the coaches,” Roanoke Valley Girls Softball League President Randy Wrenn said. “It shows a lot of hard work the girls put in with practice. They represented the RVGSL well.”

The common work for the weekend was teamwork. After each win all four of the winning coaches, Billy Smith, Bill Ewers, Bobby Martin and Sam Conner, praised their squads for their total team effort from the top to the bottom of their rosters. And it was a total team effort from the entire league as each coach and many of the Roanoke Valley players and fans stuck around after their game was over to watch the next division compete for a title, giving them support in their games. After the U14s defeated Dare County, Smith said, ‘that’s two’, after his U16 squad defeated Cashie in the first game of the day.

Three of the title games weren’t even close and even the U16s three-point win over Cashie seemed like a blowout after the previous two one-point games the two teams had played.

The U12s and U16s won the district in 2008 and Wrenn said he expected the U16s to repeat and the U14s to win since most of the U12s had stepped up a division. However, he thought four titles was asking a lot.

“I thought we would get two, I figured the 14s and 16s would bring it home again this year,” Wrenn said. “I was surprised with the U12s and U10s.”

Now it’s onto the state tournament next week in Williamston where the competition will be a little bit higher than it was in Windsor.

“All of them will face tougher caliber teams in the state,” Wrenn said.

But what was done in Windsor is still plenty to celebrate and was a big weekend for the area’s girls softball teams according to the president.

“It says a lot about the talent we have here in the Roanoke Valley.”