"This Game Is NOT Over"

Except John Moreau, that is.

When Collegiate’s varsity softball team trailed St. Gertrude 3-0 entering the bottom of the seventh (and final) inning of the 2000 League of Independent Schools tournament championship game, the veteran coach, ever optimistic, ever positive, ever encouraging, had no doubt whatsoever that the Cougars would somehow find a way to win.

“Faith and fate,” he said one day recently as he reflected upon that magical moment almost 21 years ago. “You try to instill in players that the game is never over until after the final out.”

First, a bit of context. In only its third season of fast-pitch softball following many years of slow-pitch, the Cougars raced through their LIS schedule undefeated (8-0) and twice  dispatched (5-0 and 8-2) their title-game opponent.

On this afternoon on Collegiate’s home field then located behind the Hershey Center, the Gators dominated, and when a thunderstorm halted action after the top of the seventh, the home team’s slim comeback hopes began to wane even further.

“I remember feeling completely defeated and not understanding quite why after we’d beaten St. Gertrude before,” said Morgan Salmon, the Cougars’ All-LIS and All-State pitcher and now a scientist (with a PhD in biochemistry from VCU) specializing in heart disease research at the University of Michigan. “We’d had a stellar season. We were playing awesome. And then this…

“I remember sitting in the car with my dad bawling my eyes out. It was so disappointing. I felt like everything was falling to pieces. This was my senior year. I was going off to college. I wanted to win so badly.”

No doubt that scene played out in vehicles throughout the parking lot, but as the storm passed, Moreau went from player to player, doing all within his power to raise spirits.

“I tried to be proactive,” he said. “Wherever they were, I said, ‘This game is NOT over.’ I felt that something special was in the air.”

So it was. Not immediately, though but just in the nick of time.

Once the field was prepared and action resumed, Moreau’s squad quickly found itself down to its final out, and the third batter of the inning, Anne Meagher, found herself in a two-strike hole.

That’s when the Cougars’ fortunes changed dramatically.

As the veteran coach clapped and encouraged from the third-base coaching box, Meagher squibbed a grounder down the first base line. All the pitcher had to do was field it cleanly and tag the runner. Game over. Instead, she inadvertently tapped the spinning ball with her foot allowing just enough time for Meagher to reach base safely.

Jeanne Nuara, Weezie Nuara, and Katie Zelenak, whose bats had been silent all afternoon, followed with hits that drove in enough runs to tie the score 3-3 and bring Salmon to the plate with the winning run on second.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, geez, I’m going to have to bat,’” Salmon recalled. “I hadn’t been batting super great. I was a jumble of nerves thinking, Are we going to be able to pull this out?”

With emotions running at fever-pitch and tension palpable, Salmon worked a 2-2 count, then stroked a waist-high fastball on the outside corner of the plate past the lunging pitcher, through the infield, and into centerfield.

Zelenak, who had doubled, raced toward third, Moreau waved her through, and as the centerfielder made a futile throw in the direction of the plate, Zelenak slid home with the winning run.

A thrill-of-victory, agony-of-defeat tableau ensued.

“I remember crossing the plate and having the biggest celebration I ever had in a sporting event,” said Zelenak, now Katie McGee, the senior director of program services for the Greater Virginia Chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. “We’d achieved something we didn’t think was possible. It’s awesome to have had that experience. It brought so much joy.”

Truly.

“The team was falling apart,” Salmon said. “Then, sitting 20 minutes in a car, you wouldn’t think a totally different team would come back on the field. You’re always hopeful, but pulling that out in a fast-pitch softball game is pretty rare. The emotion finally hit when I saw Katie cross the plate. I felt like it was an out-of-body experience. It was definitely the highlight of the season.”

The LIS title was the Cougars’ first since 1991. They finished 8-0 in the LIS regular season and 12-5 overall. Catcher Weezie Nuara joined Salmon on the All-LIS and All-State squads. Salmon and senior Emily Graham earned All-State All-Academic recognition.

Moreau arrived at Collegiate in 1966 as a teacher and coach. From 1968 until 1973, he served as an assistant principal at Brookland Middle School in Henrico County but returned to North Mooreland Road and held forth in a variety of capacities until his retirement in 2005. He was inducted into Collegiate’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008. Along the way, he refereed basketball for 37 years, 32 at the college level, and worked for many years as a volunteer with the Special Olympics.

He’s been there, done that, and seen just about everything the sports world has to offer.

Very little, though, can top that against-all-odds moment, especially considering that his wife Bonnie, his most ardent supporter and fan, had passed away just four-and-a-half months earlier following a courageous battle with cancer.

“The girls that played on that team were believers,” Moreau said. “Every coach would like to have players with their demeanor, positive attitude, and drive. Even when we fell behind, even when the storm came, there was a feeling of we’re going to win this for our girls…and we were going to win for Bonnie.”
    ~Weldon Bradshaw