KAMIAH — When John Little volunteered to coach Kamiah High School softball this spring, he pictured assisting someone else, and when no one else put in for the job, he took on the bigger challenge of thawing out a program that had been on ice.
“I’m brand new to this,” he said. “I mean, brand new.”
Having been on hiatus since the CV/K softball co-op dissolved, the team has 13 out to play this season, which puts Kamiah in an enviable position compared to Troy and Prairie, where the seasons are cancelled for lack of head count.
Little has six seniors and “the thing I really like about this team is, they’re very together, very cohesive,” he said. “They really support each other. They defend each other, they like each other. And it’s very apparent.”
Little pointed to leadership from seniors Reese McMurtry and Makinna Wilson and freshman “fireball” Kaidene Roodifer.
“Reese really stands out, Makinna’s probably going to be our starting pitcher and Kaidene really fires people up,” he said.
He’s still getting a sense of the team, as most of his players traveled for a HOSA event last week. He knows softball competition across the Whitepine League is stiff, including at defending state champion Potlatch, 1A runner-up Genesee, state qualifier Kendrick, as well as the familiars at CV.
Little credited Denise Oatman, Stacy Skinner and Joe Roodifer, who have stepped up to help the program get restarted this season, and he laid out his longer-term vision for the team: “We see that the football team is building, getting better and better. The track team is outstanding, and getting better and better. The basketball teams are better and better,” he said. “We’re going to have a learning curve, but we want to build Kamiah softball to be competitive in our league, so you can see all the athletics in Kamiah are climbing, for Kamiah to be reckoned with in all of our sports.”
The Kubs open March 16 against Nezperce, with the first game at 4:30 p.m. They have a road game with Lapwai March 21, and a visit to CV at 4 p.m. April 10.
