ALL-AREA: Rebels' Edwards chosen softball coach-of-the-year

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on June 13, 2015 11:28 PM

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By RUDY COGGINS

[email protected]

CALYPSO -- The ride home still seems surreal.

Just hours after North Duplin won the state 1-A softball title in Greensboro late last Saturday evening, Duplin County sheriffs met the team bus and escorted it through Newton Grove.

As the entourage approached the Interstate 40 overpass, fireworks erupted from fire trucks lined up on each side of the bridge.

Edwards wondered what was next.

About 30 minutes later, the team headed into Faison where the street on each side overflowed with fans who celebrated the team's return with loud cheers. Edwards stopped the bus, the players stepped off, grabbed hands and received numerous hugs, kisses and high-fives as they walked through the crowd.

"I've never been part of anything like that," said Edwards, who was a near-unaminous selection as the 2015 News-Argus All-Area Softball Coach-of-the-Year.

Yes, it's been a season to remember.

But reaching this point started 12 months ago.

North Duplin immediately turned heads last spring with first-year head coach Todd Slater. The Rebels finished in a three-way tie for second place in Carolina 1-A Conference play, and won an opening-round postseason game for the first time since 2010.

Slater had set the table for 2015.

Only, he didn't return.

A former baseball coach with two-plus decades of experience, Edwards took over the program. Along with assistance from Keith Pate and Max Barwick, the trio worked diligently to retain last year's success -- and add blocks to an already solid foundation.

No one talked about the big picture.

Edwards stressed the "one game at a time" philosophy. But soon he and his coaching staff knew a special season was on the horizon. The Rebels displayed a calm and relaxed attitude, and played nearly every game with the precision of a Timex watch.

"Keith and Max did a fantastic job. It was a good year," Edwards said. "I just had a lot of good help. They've done everything we could possibly ask of them in practice. Most of them play softball all of the time.

"They were very coachable."

And they raised the bar for future teams.

The Rebels established single-season records for overall wins (20), conference wins (10), runs scored (168), defensive shutouts (13) and playoff victories (eight).

Of course, they capped their record-setting campaign with a state championship -- just the third in program history overall and the first-ever in any girls' sport.

Those feats haven't sunk in with the modest Edwards.

"You always enter every season as a coach hoping that (of winning a state title), but you don't really expect it," said Edwards, a coach who doesn't like the spotlight. "It's never really been a goal of mine because you want to be successful whether you win any games or whether you win all of them.

"You don't think of a state championship as a goal. There were a lot of good teams out there that weren't in Greensboro. I told them that they earned it."