To appreciate where the River Falls High School softball program is going, you have to know where they've been. If losing is a disease, the Wildcat softballers have been on life support since they entered the Big Rivers Conference in 1990. In an 11-season stretch from 1998 to 2008, the Wildcats had a collective conference record of three wins and 135 losses. The decade before wasn't much better, the decade after was much of the same. In 2016, athletic administration sent an email to the JV softball parents cancelling a road trip to Rice Lake. Opposing JV teams were "loaning" pitchers to the Wildcats to have a game. It wasn't fair to the other teams said the email. They were cancelling games for not having pitchers. 

Error after error in the field, walk after walk in the pitching circle, and strikeout after strikeout at the plate, it was as predictable as a pimple on prom. Since feathered hair, boom boxes, and Wilson Phillips singing "Hold On," in 1990, the Wildcat softball team has known what it was like to lose. It was their culture. It was a hard habit to break.  

But, as the pop trio sang during “Hold On” behind a famous crescendo of drums, "someday, somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say good-bye" to that culture. 

That somebody for the Wildcat softball program was 10-year-old Tessa Davis in 2014.

Tessa had two older brothers, Joey and Jack, and they both played baseball. Their dad coached them and their mom, Jane, was on the youth baseball board.

Tessa asked her mom one day in 2014, "Why is baseball important and softball isn't?"

"It was quite the question from this little 10-year-old," said Jane Davis, "And I didn't have an answer, but she didn't let it go. She was very determined and she wanted to play like her brothers. I said, 'we have to change that.’"

So, the next season, Davis started traveling youth softball in River Falls. They had a garage sale and sold cookies and mustered up $730 to buy equipment. It took six months just to have the non-profit 501(c)(3) paperwork officially approved. 

"I did talk to Coach Bishop (Wildcat baseball head coach) to get some guidance and he (Bishop) and the youth baseball board were so supportive, but we started from the absolute ground up," said Davis.

Tessa rounded up some of her friends and her cousin, Taylor Weick, corralled some of hers. Seven of the girls were 10 years old and six of them were 12 years old and they played as one team in the 12U league.

"They won one game that summer and it was like they won the World Series," said Davis. "But they were so brave to keep going out there every week. They lost every game by a lot but they kept playing."

The next year there were three teams and a few years later Davis passed the “President” torch to Paul Adermann.

"We had four batting helmets for a team and they were big enough to fit Fred Flintstone," said Adermann. "We needed extra funding and Dave and Cheryl Dinteman (owners of Johnnie’s Bar) have been so great over the years helping us host euchre tournaments and 50/50 raffles for us. They are part of the success and growth, too."

"It didn't matter if we won games at the 12U level, it really didn't," continued Adermann, "It's about having fun and preparing the girls to help at the high school level."

What started out with Tessa Davis making up a baker's dozen, is now over 100 youth softball girls. This year's high school freshman softball class has 18 girls, five on varsity and 13 on JV.

"Chantelle (previous Wildcat head coach) did a nice job with the talent and the youth program," said first-year Head Coach Matt Smith, "and we're just trying to elevate that."

Elevating and breaking free of the culture chains is exactly what Smith and Assistant Coach Ryan Scherz are doing.

"The relationship is the big picture," said Smith. "That culture part of it, that's all Coach Scherz. We're going to lose ballgames, that happens, but how we attack life, face adversity, and try to be better people with it, that's ultimately our goal."

Coming off a 1-13 finish in the conference season last year, Smith and his softball team did a book study with author Jon Gordon's “The Coffee Bean.” 

 "I think it stuck with the girls and how we go about things. When adversity knocks, how we react with a positive mindset will dictate our success."

In “The Coffee Bean,” Smith described the girls could choose to be like a carrot and become soft and wilt in boiling water and stresses. They could also choose to be like a hard-boiled egg and deflect the heat by blaming others, or they could choose to be like a coffee bean and decide how they can make the boiling water and each situation better.

"I know a lot of teammates look up to me," said junior captain Jordan Torrez. "I try to shake everything off because if the others see me get down, then they get down. I'm a coffee bean with having a good attitude. That's how I help our team."

Torrez is shining her brightest in the biggest games, batting .500 in conference games and among the conference leaders in almost every hitting category.

"I'd put our first four hitters up against anybody in the state," said Scherz.

Lead-off hitter Lily Burke is hitting .429, while clean-up hitter Avery Amidon is batting .415. Jordan Schwantz and Torrez each lead the team with two home runs apiece and 19 and 15 RBI, respectively. Schwantz leads the team with 24 runs scored.

The Wildcats are having their first winning season since the Berlin Wall was torn down. They are currently sitting at 13-4 over-all after this weekend.   

Another wall came crumbling down this past week, the kind of symbolic wall that's a defining moment in a program's history. Chippewa Falls has won or shared the conference title 16 of the last 20 years. River Falls had not beaten the Cardinals since 1995, a 55-game losing streak. Chippewa Falls was 11-0 in BRC play this year and ranked ninth in the state.

Coach Smith told the girls before the game, "If you think about it, all those dusty trophies they have back at their high school don't mean anything tonight. Why does May 11 have to be just another day we lose to Chip? Why can't May 11, 2023 be a day we go get the job done?"

River Falls was down 6-3 in the bottom of the seventh. The water was starting to boil. The coffee bean mentality kicked in. Burke and Schwantz led off with base hits and Amidon doubled them home to make it 6-5. With two outs and freshman Audra Adermann coming to bat, a "hard-boiled egg" would think the game is almost over, but a coffee bean has the mindset we just had three hits, so one more will be easy. Adermann laced a single scoring Amidon, sending the game into extra innings.

"Before the ninth inning, I said in the dugout we are not leaving this field tonight without a win," said Schwantz. "My confidence is my coffee bean and that's how I help the team."

Schwantz doubled off the fence to start the ninth and ended up scoring on a passed ball for the 7-6 win.

Video of the winning slide quickly made its way around the extended Wildcat softball family.

"I've never seen Scherz jump so high," said Schwantz smiling.

Scherz and Smith were both lightning quick to shed credit as softball savants on the one-year 180.   

"I just stay out of their way and let them be them," said Smith, "Your mind can be your greatest friend and it can also be your biggest enemy. They just needed to believe. That's all them."

"I know they're (coaches) very humble and they don't think they've made a big impact," said senior captain Avery Amidon, "but we just had a weight on us trying to prove ourselves and that weight has been lifted and it's fun because everybody knows their role. Those two have allowed us to feel confidence. My coffee bean is love. I love our team."

"We used to be proud for just playing a good game," said Schwantz. "But this year we just know what our expectations are and we expect to win."

Senior captain and starting pitcher Ali Laube is going into pre-med at UW-La Crosse next year. Like a polite well-spoken surgeon wise beyond her years, Laube dissected her reason for why she's 6-0 with a 1.72 E.R.A. on the rubber since the first game against Hudson.

"The wins are coming because we learned to have fun. We're still intense, but it's in a fun way. We all have a shared positivity and all our relationships are growing together. My coffee bean to help the team is to have fun."

If Wilson Phillips' song “Hold On” symbolizes the last decade of Wildcat softball, Aerosmith's “Dream On” may symbolize the next 10 years with their lyric, "You got to lose to know how to win."

The win against Chippewa Falls breaking a 55-game losing streak wasn't for Coach Matt Smith; it was for Tessa Davis and every program team member since 2014. 

Dream on, Wildcat softball. Dream on.