Husky seniors experience unforgettable ending

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Sports

At the time they didn’t know it, but March 12 would be the final day of Abigail Dorsett and KK Hughes’ high school softball playing careers.

It will be a day the Hewitt-Trussville High School senior duo won’t soon forget.

With the COVID-19 pandemic beginning to sweep the nation, professional and college sporting events were beginning to be postponed. It was apparent things were changing rapidly across the sports landscape and that it would soon trickle to the high school sports landscape.

But that afternoon, Hewitt-Trussville softball coach Taylor Burt had the foresight to send Abigail and her sister, Hannah, to the Samford University game.

Their older sister Maddie was a senior for the Bulldogs this season, and Samford held an impromptu Senior Day ceremony for Maddie and the rest of the Samford seniors. It turned out to be Maddie’s final game and her sisters were there to see it and celebrate with her.

Following that game, the two younger Dorsett sisters rushed over to Mountain Brook, where Hewitt-Trussville’s area game against the Spartans was set to take place. They arrived later than the rest of the team, but they were able to warm up and play in the game as planned.

Abigail had a pair of hits and drove in two runs in the Huskies’ 19-2 win over Mountain Brook that night. Nothing about that is unusual. But Hughes did the same thing at the plate, notching two hits and two RBIs. Being inserted into the batting lineup was certainly a unique occurrence for the standout pitcher.

“We just had fun,” Burt said of that night.

In hindsight, Burt is glad she encouraged the Dorsetts to go to the Samford game and let Hughes bat that night, she said. The following day and over that weekend, Trussville City Schools, like so many other systems, suspended school indefinitely.

With her defending state championship team off to a 12-1-1 start on the season, Burt was still in the frame of mind that her team would still be afforded the opportunity to finish its season.

“I was positive and upbeat, because I was thinking if we can get back in April, then we can make these adjustments [to improve] and be ready to go,” she said.

But the remainder of the season was officially canceled on March 26, with the announcement that all education throughout the state would be conducted virtually for the remainder of the school year.

Burt said everyone’s health and well being is obviously the priority in a time such as this, but she admitted to a feeling of disappointment in not being able to see her team’s journey all the way through.

“We were really good, I’ll be honest, and that stinks that we didn’t get to see what we could do,” she said.

Burt also lamented the small experiences that her players will miss out on, such as the long road trips and weekend tournaments.

Hewitt-Trussville graduated five seniors from the 2019 team that won the Class 7A title. Aside from plugging in new starters to replace those departed, Burt’s job was relatively simple with this year’s team.

That’s largely a credit to Hughes and Dorsett.

“They worked their tails off,” Burt said. “It’s really a good group of juniors and seniors and the underclassmen followed along with them.”

In the abbreviated season, the Huskies won three out of four games in the season-opening Sidney Cooper Invitational, hosted by Central-Phenix City. In their first game, they were shut out by Spanish Fort’s Ainsley Lambert, an Oregon State commit. But Hughes matched Lambert pitch for pitch, and the game ended in a scoreless tie. The following day, the Huskies outscored three opponents 31-2 on the way to a dominant day.

Hewitt-Trussville’s only loss came to Spain Park in the Jag Classic final, after the Huskies rolled up five wins over two days.

Several Huskies put together notable statistics in those 14 games. Abigail Dorsett finished with a .455 batting average, while Hughes posted a 7-0 record with a 1.00 earned run average. Freshman Kenleigh Cahalan led the team with a .523 average, while slugging six home runs and driving in 20 runs. Jenna Lord had eight homers and 21 RBIs, while Crystal Maze notched five homers.

The Huskies were a junior-heavy team this year, which means they will be senior-laden next spring. Burt said she hopes those players take after Dorsett and Hughes, who will be playing at Samford and South Alabama, respectively, next season.

“It never came easy, and they both had to work their butts off to get where they got,” Burt said. “They never took it for granted.”