THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: The sweet rewards of going deep

When a Lakeland High softball player hits a home run this season, her job is not done.

As she rounds third base, she has to catch the piece of candy tossed to them by Hawks head coach Dwayne Curry, who is coaching third base.

Usually she does.

But if she doesn’t … no candy.

“At the beginning of the season he told us if we get a home run he’ll toss us one,” Lakeland senior shortstop Harley See said Friday, after the Hawks beat Moscow to win the Region 1 title and advance to the state 4A tournament this Friday and Saturday at Post Falls High. “And if we drop it, then we don’t get it. So you have to be able to catch it.”

See was one of four Lakeland players to homer in the Hawks’ 16-15 come-from-behind victory.

And if she doesn’t catch the candy?

Don’t blame the coach.

“I don’t have bad tosses,” Curry said after the game. “Two of them today, they dropped. I just turn and throw ‘em; they don’t get ‘em. And it’s so interesting. I was talking to one of the umps about it and he says, ‘I think they like the candy more than the home run.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s the point. That’s the incentive that I’m trying to build.’ And it is. It’s a stupid two-cent piece of candy, that they’ll kill you for.”

And when she doesn’t catch the candy?

“I pick it up and throw it over that way (toward the tennis courts, behind the Hawks’ home dugout on the third-base side) as hard as I can throw it. I try to get it in the tennis court. They’ve missed three this year, and I think every one I’ve cleared that fence. They can go find it later if they want it.”

Lakeland has homered 31 times in 26 games this season. If the Hawks hit any out this weekend, watch The Candy Man as the player rounds third.

And if she doesn’t make the catch?

If you’re watching from the third-base side, you might get a souvenir.

SOMEONE WHO has won a couple state championships helped her college alma mater knock off a longtime nemesis recently.

Vanessa Shippy-Fletcher, former star at Lake City High and Oklahoma State, is back in Stillwater as an assistant coach with the Cowgirls, who beat top-ranked and defending national champion Oklahoma (49-2) 4-3 in eight innings last Saturday in Oklahoma City to win its first Big 12 championship in program history.

Shippy-Fletcher is in her second season as assistant coach at Oklahoma State.

As a player, she was a three-time All-American and the Big 12 Player of the Year in 2016 and 2018.

She was an assistant coach at Syracuse for two seasons before returning to Stillwater, where she was first noticed when she told head coach Kenny Gajewski she wanted to move to catcher because the Cowgirls weren’t good enough behind the plate.

“The person that changed the mentality of this program was Vanessa,” Gajewski told The O’Colly, the student newspaper at Oklahoma State. “The way she selflessly did something that wasn’t for the betterment of her. It was for the betterment of our program. That’s the change in our program that we all don’t need to forget.”

The Cowgirls (41-12) earned a No. 7 national seed and will host North Texas, Nebraska and Fordham in one of 16 first-round regionals starting Friday.

If Oklahoma State wins, the Cowgirls would host a super regional the following weekend.

Oklahoma State reached the College World Series each of the past two years.

Gajewski said he is thankful Shippy-Fletcher left Syracuse to take a volunteer assistant coaching job at Oklahoma State.

“Having her here is a blessing,” Gajewski said. “We give her more and more each day because she just communicates very, very well with our kids. They seem to really respond to her. That’s a luxury.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.