The public address system at CDOβs Bundrick-Enterline softball facility conked out early in Tuesdayβs long-anticipated showdown with No. 1 Ironwood Ridge.
Not that it mattered. PA announcer John Kaiser, who was an NFL linebacker for four seasons, used his booming voice to talk above the standing room only crowd.
βNow batting for CDO,β he declared loudly, βNo. 9, A.J. Kaiser!β
This is how good the No. 2 Dorados are: A.J. Kaiser, who is Johnβs daughter, is hitting .593. She batted seventh in coach Kelly Fowlerβs lineup. Kaiser, a sophomore, has already accepted a scholarship to Syracuse.
This is how good coach Rich Aldayβs top-ranked Nighthawks are: Isabel Pacho is hitting .443 with six home runs. Pacho, also a sophomore, has already accepted a scholarship to Arizona, whose assistant coach, Stacy Iveson, squeezed into a corner of the bleachers among Tuesdayβs overflow crowd.
The CDO-Ironwood Ridge softball series has become Tuesdayβs ranking sports rivalry. Any sport. Any gender. It is what the Amphi-Sabino football rivalry was in the 1990s. It is what the Rincon-Catalina baseball rivalry of the β60s was.
Over the past six seasons, CDO is 188-28, and Ironwood Ridge is 167-44. Among them, thatβs a winning percentage of .832. This year the Dorados and Nighthawks are even better, if thatβs possible. After Tuesdayβs final game of the regular season, the 27-1-1 Dorados and the 28-4 Nighthawks are winning 91 percent of their games.
βI hope we see each other again May 16,β said Alday, who coached Ironwood Ridge to the 2014 state championship game, beating, who else, CDO in the finals.
May 16 is the date for the Division II state championship game.
This century alone, CDO won state softball titles in 2001, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012.
But what separates the CDO-Ironwood Ridge rivalry from its Tucson peers is that there appears to be no weβve-gotta-beat-those-jerks approach. The schools are separated by just 5.6 miles, but there is so much in common between their head coaches and Tucsonβs vast summer-ball travel season that they are, believe it or not, friendly.
Before Tuesdayβs game, won 5-3 by the Dorados, Fowler staged Senior Day ceremonies not just for her team, but for Ironwood Ridge, too. Who does that? Ever? One by one, the 12 Nighthawks seniors walked to home plate to accept a rose and an embrace from a Dorados player.
Fowler is so familiar with the Ironwood Ridge players that she referred to them not by their formal, listed-on-the-roster names, but by their softball names.
She called second baseman Loriann Olson βLuluβ and catcher Emily Turecek βET.β
βAll these girls,β Fowler said, βhave crossed paths somewhere along the line.β
None, however, have crossed paths more than the so-called rival coaches, Fowler and Alday. When Pima College initiated its sports programs 45 years ago, the Aztecs hired Alday as their head baseball coach and Norm Patton, Kellyβs father, as its menβs basketball coach.
βKelly is my goddaughter,β said Alday. βIβve known her and her family forever. Iβve always called Norm βStormyβ and you canβt have a better relationship than Iβve had with Stormy.β
When Fowler and Alday met with the umpires in the pregame ritual at home plate Tuesday, they completed the process by embracing one another. At gameβs end, they did so again.
Thatβs not exactly Vern Friedli vs. Jeff Scurran, whose epic Amphi-Sabino football games of the β90s were the furthest thing from a hug-fest youβll ever see.
The CDO and Ironwood Ridge softball programs are fueled by similar components. Most of their players spend the offseason playing either for Steve Nolandβs Desert Thunder program, or for Kyle Carneyβs Suncats travel team.
Both organizations are nationally prominent and can be traced to a familiar source: Fowler and her husband, Lance, founded Desert Thunder in 2001 and that group, now under Noland, has continued the lab work for Tucsonβs remarkable, across-the-table softball success that began in the 1980s, when Sahuaroβs Billy Lopez went on to win six state championships.
Over the last 30 years, Tucson teams have won 32 state softball championships, and itβs not just dominion by a few. Flowing Wells, Desert View, Pusch Ridge, Empire, Cienega, Sahuarita and Pueblo have also won state softball championships.
After Tuesdayβs game, the man who coached 1,744 baseball games as head coach at Pima College and New Mexico, marveled at the caliber of softball in the CDO-Ironwood Ridge rivalry.
It didnβt take Alday long to convert from baseball to softball. As a senior at Tucson High in 1965, Alday quarterbacked the Badgers to a 12-0 state championship.
βWe really didnβt have a big rival,β he said with a smile. βWe beat everyone.β
Now a half-century later, Alday has found his rival, and it has found him.
