30 years ago: Columbus to state

COLUMBUS JUNCTION — Last week at the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union state softball tournament in Fort Dodge, five champions were crowned in five classes. From 1957 until 1993, just one champion was crowned as the whole state, every school with a softball team, was in competition with all the others.

Columbus Community High School has made two trips to the state tournament. The first was 30 years ago. The team returned in 1993.

Starting in 1994, IGHSAU went to three classes and in 2004 there were four. In 2012, it went to five.

Current Columbus coach Katie Coil, whose cousin Amy Phillips was the catcher on the 1991 team, organized a reunion June 17 to honor that special group of Wildcats. The ceremony was between games of a Columbus-Mediapolis doubleheader.

Announced like the starting lineup, Tara Pugh (outfield), Lety Perez (outfield), Wendy Edwards (third base), Amy Phillips, Michelle Martin and coach Bob Curtis took the field and Martin threw out the first pitch.

Other members of the team were coach Bob Martin, Joanne Woepking (first base), Angie Milder (second base), Angie Simmons (shortstop), Amy Pugh (outfield), Sara Smith, Brittney Mincer, Benji Delzell, Amy Totemeier, Angie Adams, Amy Brown and Donda Johnson.

Of the nine sophomores on the team, five started and Phillips was the only senior. Martin and right fielder Mincer were the only juniors. Center fielder Smith, Perez, and Totemeier were freshmen.

“The best part of the 1991 season was the community following,” Martin said. “Softball was a huge part of our community, and there were a tremendous number of nonfamily fans that supported us during the regular season and at the state tournament.”

The 1991 team had a record of 34-4 in the regular season and ended 36-6, going 2-2 at the state tournament to finish 10th.

Curtis finished a career that started in 1980 with a record of 529 wins against 200 losses.

Martin was a 2006 inductee into the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union Softball Hall of Fame.

“The thing about Michelle, playing with her, we knew we could do anything,” Edwards said. “If we did our job, she’d take us where we wanted to go.”

Martin had great talent, but she honed it through hours of work with Phillips and her father, coach Bob Martin, who died in 2020. Martin went on to play Division I softball and earned First Team All-Conference in 1995 and 1996 and was a First Team Academic All-American in 1995.

“Michelle was so incredible, such a great teammate to have,” Edwards said. “She was our rock.”

The Wildcats knew that with Michelle Martin pitching, they could be the avalanche of stones behind her and they became a force to be reckoned with.

“It’s not like we won every game, but we knew how to work well with one another and how to build each other up,” Phillips said. “There was nobody in it for themselves. It was a team thing, and we were in it for one another.”

“It was a record-breaking season personally with the ultimate accomplishment of finally reaching the goal of the state tournament,” Martin said. “I spent many hours pitching with my dad in the offseason to meet this goal. Time I treasure very much to this day.”

In 1992, Albia ended the Columbus season and Martin’s high school career with a one-run victory.

“It was a real treat to go in ‘93,” Edwards said, when Joanne Woepking pitched the Wildcats to state. Woepking’s father was the football coach at Columbus for a number of years, and she is married to former Iowa basketball star, Jess Settles.

All the success brought crowds to the games. There was a group of grandmothers that would show up with pom-poms, dressed in cheerleader outfits and cheer for Columbus.

“We actually had better fans at the high school level than I had at college and Western Illinois was good,” Martin said. She played against Oklahoma State, UCLA, Notre Dame, Florida State and most of the Big Ten schools. “Compared to what I had in high school, college was boring.”

A community tends to rally around its teams, especially successful ones.

“I think the community spirit really helped us play better,” Martin said. “Softball was always been a part of my life.”

Martin grew up watching the teams at Columbus Junction up close. She spent time in the dugout as a kid, idolized the players and dreamed of the day she could play at Marshall Field, which doesn’t exist any more, wiped out by the floods in 1993.

“Marshall Field was a special place to play,” Martin said. “Playing there really felt like playing in ‘A League of Their Own’ movie. Softball gave me the foundation to play in college.”

The game gave the Wildcats a special time in their lives. “Barring having kids, it was the best time of my life,” Edwards said.

“I’m going to say the best part was my teammates,” Phillips said. “We were a family, just a tight-knit family.”

The family earned a trip to Fort Dodge and the state tournament after a 1-0 win against Lincoln Stanwood.

Martin threw a perfect game for the victory, her fourth that season, in addition to eight no-hitters and the state’s strikeout record. New London’s Sharon Lorber had 443 strikeouts for the previous record.

“It was so surreal,” Edwards said. “We stayed in the college dorms. It just felt like it was a big football game because we never made it that far.”

“We wanted it, that was the thing that we all shared that made us good,” Phillips said. “We were young and it was scary when we got to the state tournament. The chips were down, but we were all there for each other.”

Getting that far meant facing one of the best 16 teams in the state and the opponent was Cedar Rapids Kennedy with a 56-0 record.

“It was such a high getting there and then to have to play Jefferson was just so tough,” Edwards said. “We knew it was important to pick each other up, to encourage each other.”

“I’ll never forget that those girls were huge, especially compared to us,” Phillips said.

The result was a 7-0 loss. Jefferson finished the tournament third.

Columbus recovered to defeat Kingsley-Pierson, 4-1. Milder scored after a sacrifice by Edwards and a single by Mincer in the second inning. Phillips hit a bases-loaded triple in the fifth inning. Martin gave up two hits and struck out 10.

“The most memorable part about state was the feeling walking on to the field at night in Fort Dodge,” Martin said. “The stands were packed. We had never played in front of that many people.”

Another 4-1 win followed with Phillips hitting a single that went through Ogden’s center fielder, scoring Simmons and Phillips, too. Phillips and Simmons scored again three innings later with Edwards and Milder getting the RBIs. Martin gave up four hits and struck out 15 which put her season total at 501.

The game for the consolation bracket title between two teams named Wildcats went 12 innings against Riceville. Simmons scored on Pugh’s single for a 1-0 lead in the third inning, but Riceville tied it in the fifth. An unearned run was the difference in the 2-1 loss.

“Losing in the final game at state was the worst part about the season,” Martin said. “We should not have lost that game.”

Martin’s 14 strikeouts put her season total at 515, a national record. The 36 wins were the school record.

“Amy and Michelle, pitcher and catcher, they were our leaders,” Edwards said. “We loved them.”

What those Wildcats accomplished is “what I am most proud of. I wouldn’t do anything different.”

If there was a key to the season, it was the coaching.

“Coach Curtis gave us a strong work ethic and made us want to be the best,” Phillips said. "He didn’t differentiate between softball, or any sport or anything I did. He wanted us to excel in anything we did.“

Phillips would go on to play in college but an injury ended softball her sophomore year.

“We had dedicated, caring coaches that taught us the game and put us in the best position to win,” Martin said. “I have tried to give more back to the game, the girls, and Columbus Junction because of all the game and my coaches gave me.”

“I think the time I had with the coaches, especially Michelle‘s dad, were the best times,” Edwards said. “I think he’s definitely the influence on me to become a teacher and a coach. He wanted all of us to be a better player and he taught us how to work toward being a better player.”

“I really got to know him and work closely with him because of working with Michelle,” Phillips said.

Coach Martin had a saying. “If you’re going to cry every time you strike out, there’s going to be a lot of crying.”

Edwards recalls striking out three times against Cardinal. Coach Martin consoled her and she told him she would practice and practice to get better. He put his arm around her and said, ‘Edwards.’ Just saying her name in a certain tone “just made everything better. I’ll never forget that. It was one of those little things that are ever lasting in my mind.”

Editor’s note: Players were referred to by their last names in high school. Those with married last names are Michelle Martin Lukavsky, Joanne Woepking Settles, Angie Milder Oepping, Angie Simmons Huthmacher, Wendy Edwards Casel, Amy Pugh Unger, Sara Smith Lippert, Lety Perez Marin, Tara Pugh Howell, Amy Totemiere Havenhill and Amy Brown Conneley.