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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

The Helena Huskies and Thompson Warriors entered the 2025 softball season with two things in common–state championship aspirations and a state championship drought.

Helena hadn’t won state in its entire existence and despite a streak of state championship appearances dating back before the pandemic, its last two trips to Oxford had zero wins to show for them.

While Thompson most recently won a title in 2021, the last three state tournament appearances also ended in heartbreak. A pitchers’ duel loss to Daphne spelled a 1-2 run at state for the Warriors in 2024 and spurred a desire to do better in 2025.

In the end, for all their differences, both teams shared another thing in common by the end of the year–a state championship. And for that reason, Helena’s Mark Sanders and Thompson’s Kevin Todd are the Shelby County Coaches of the Year, Sanders for the second-straight year and Todd for the fifth time in his career.

While Sanders burst onto the varsity scene last year with a state tournament appearance and followed it up with an even more successful year in 2025, he is anything but an overnight success story.

Before getting the call to coach Helena’s varsity team in 2024, he spent 22 years at the middle school level, first turning around Riverchase Middle School before setting the foundation at Helena Middle School. The Huskies’ winning record in 2025 brings him to a staggering 23-consecutive winning seasons, dating back before any of his players were born.

He also notched the 600th win of his career at regionals, a tournament that Helena had to overcome adversity to make it out of and get back on the path to a state title.

That long journey made the first state championship extra meaningful to a softball lifer, but the 2025 season was anything but smooth sailing.

The Huskies had to fight through a gauntlet of an area to even make it to regionals, surging past Spain Park, Chelsea and Pelham late to clinch area tournament hosting rights. From there, they had to beat all three teams to win the area title, eliminating a pair of top-10 teams in the process in the Hornets and Jags.

Helena rode that momentum of an undefeated stretch in area play into regionals by beating Calera and Hueytown to reach the finals for a second-straight season. However, a loss there to Brookwood left the Huskies fighting for their season against Chilton County in an elimination game.

“After that loss, it was tough,” Sanders said at the end of the season. “Our girls really wanted to be the first qualifier, and that didn’t happen. We were number two, but I kept telling them, ‘All you got to do is reach the next round, and you can get hot.’”

And boy, did they get hot.

Helena beat Chilton County 3-1 to advance to state and downed Rehobeth, Hartselle and Saraland to advance to the second day of state unscathed. The latter two were one-run games as the Huskies rode their pitching and timely hitting to wins, the same way they did for much of the year.

From there, it was death by a thousand cuts in the state title game with Carrington Schiefer delivering quality innings and forcing 21-straight outs from her fielders while the offense extended out a lead little by little.

That helped Helena secure the state title that had long eluded it and gave Sanders a career-defining achievement–a state title just two years into his varsity career.

Even a day before he won, tears streamed down his face at just the thought of winning a state title. However, he helped get it done to help his players win the championship they couldn’t in 2020 when COVID canceled the playoffs.

“It means everything,” Sanders said after the championship win. “They’ve worked so hard. I had them when they were seventh and eighth graders, and they had wonderful seasons then. And I knew their heart. I knew their leadership abilities.”

Through the entire journey, Sanders led with humility and grace, asking his players to give their best while modeling it himself.

“We ask them every day to do three things,” Sanders said of his players after state. “We ask them to love each other unconditionally, we ask them to have fun playing the game, and we ask them to want it more than their opponents. And they did that, those three things for this entire week. And that’s what made the difference. They wanted it more this week.”

Another team that simply wanted it more down the stretch was Thompson.

The Warriors entered the playoffs more heralded than the Huskies as they had a No. 1 ranking in Class 7A, but they also faced more adversity in the postseason as they not only lost the first game of regionals, but of state as well.

The regionals loss to Hewitt-Trussville forced them to beat two of the best teams in the state, Hoover and Hewitt, to reach the state tournament. Thompson’s mental fortitude showed by its pitching and hitting performances facing elimination as it outlasted a pair of state title contenders to keep its own title dream alive.

However, the real challenge came when they lost their opening game in Oxford to Sparkman. Instead of just two wins, Thompson would need six-straight to win the title.

The Warriors didn’t have to look far for motivation as Todd instilled a simple mantra into his team for the season: “No excuses. Get it done.” It proved to be a fitting rallying cry for a group of players who couldn’t complain or wallow in defeat for a second, not with an elimination game on deck.

Facing the same team and pitcher who ended their season in 2024 in Daphne’s Vic Moten, Todd handed the ball to his ace, the soon-to-be two-time Shelby County Pitcher of the Year Aubree Hooks, and his faith was rewarded with a 2-0 win in an absolute pitchers’ duel.

Then, Thompson went down to the wire in a one-run game against Central-Phenix City, one the Warriors won 5-4 to eliminate one of the most talented Red Devils teams in history.

A relatively-easy 11-1 win over Auburn High School to open day two of state preceded a rematch with Sparkman, a rematch that Thompson had to dig deep for once again. The Warriors needed to go down to the wire with the Senators before a play at the plate helped them walk off and reach the title game.

Thompson had one more bout of adversity to overcome when Tuscaloosa County took the lead back from the Warriors when a pair of errors set up three runs and eventually led to a 4-1 Wildcats lead past the halfway point.

That was when Thompson dug deep and scored four runs over the next two innings to take the lead. After Tuscaloosa County scored again to force extras, Todd’s side roared ahead with an emphatic three-run rally.

The rally proved prescient as it foreshadowed an early 3-0 lead for the Warriors in game two before they slammed the door shut with six runs in the fifth to seal the unlikely state championship.

While Todd has been to the mountaintop before, it hasn’t been quite like this before. Faced with adversity and elimination at every turn in Albertville and Oxford, he rallied his team and helped them find a new level.

In the end, it came down to taking each game as it came to beat four different opponents six times.

“We just had to take it one at a time,” Todd said after the state title game. “Now you can look back and say, ‘Wow, that was really, really tough.’ But just all glory to God. It’s who we put all our trust in this program. And He was with us. He was with us today.”

That faith was on display throughout the season as even for a public-school team, Todd and Thompson made it clear who they were playing for, exemplified by their other motto: “Praise hard, play hard.”

More than anything though, one trait stood above them all­–a grittiness and determination to not back down without a fight, a fighting spirit that was passed down from their coach to the players.

It was a trait that Todd said carried them to a state title even when he believed this was a less talented team than the ones in years past that fell short of glory.

“(The seniors) have been in the state tournament every year that they’ve been this program,” Todd said after the final victory. “And to go out like this, I tell it to them all the time, stat-wise, this is not one of our better teams that we’ve had in the last four years. They just love each other, they play for each other and they’re just gritty. And I’ll never forget them. They’re special.”

Just like Sanders, Todd taught his players how to dig deep and play hard, which is why they are both the Shelby County Coaches of the Year.