Posted on Tue, Mar. 18, 2008

For Chandler Searcy, it was a risk. A favor to his athletic director.

He knew football and baseball from his playing days. But softball? How was he supposed to coach softball at Flanagan High School?

Well, he got a little help, in the form of three freshmen -- Lauren Heil, Amanda Schmidt and Maria Gilreath -- who, four years later, have pushed the Falcons to a 14-2 record heading into Monday's game against Coral Glades.

''They've been my everything these past four years,'' Searcy said.

Gilreath's the rock behind the plate, a catcher who is back this season after missing last year with arm surgery.

But Heil and Schmidt are the ones in the mound-shaped spotlight, two college-bound position players who also form one of Broward County's best one-two pitching duos.

Funny thing, because none of them -- not Heil, not Schmidt, not Searcy -- knew much about pitching when they arrived at Flanagan.

Heil had thrown a few times when she was younger. Schmidt, too, but not as much as Heil. Searcy knew baseball pitching, but not softball.

All three learned, and now Heil and Schmidt are shutting down opposing batters -- not as dominant aces, but more as a tandem, with one on the mound and the other at shortstop almost every night.

And they're not too bad on the plate, on the basepaths and in the field, either. Searcy says ''they can do it all,'' and two colleges -- University of Florida for Heil, and Jacksonville University for Schmidt -- are bringing them in as position players.

But for Flanagan, they're still talented hurlers, always working together.

'It's nice to know that if I'm struggling on the mound, I can look back at [Amanda] and she'll be like, `Do you want me to pitch?' '' Heil said. ``And the same thing with her -- if she's pitching and she's struggling, I'll be like, `I can go in.'

``It's kind of a comfort thing to know that she's always there to back me up.''

But Heil, like Gilreath, wasn't there last season. A back fracture limited Heil to just a handful of games, eventually sidelining her for about 18 months.

That left Schmidt pretty much on her own -- though she doesn't see it that way.

''The whole team had to adjust, not just me,'' the upbeat Schmidt said. ``I didn't mind pitching that much, because it wasn't always just me [alone] on the mound.''

Instead, she and her young teammates led Flanagan to a respectable 19-7 record.

Now Gilreath's back. So is Heil, whose self-described stern leadership style forms a ''perfect combination,'' in Heil's words, with Schmidt's more easygoing approach.

And they've got a lot more than ''respectable'' on their minds. All of them -- Searcy and his players -- expect to emerge from District 12-6A and make a run at the state tournament, past rivals like Cooper City (which these Falcons beat last month).

Then? Heil will go to Gainesville, following most of her family and a fulfilling a lifelong dream. Schmidt will head to Jacksonville, where she expects to fit in as a third baseman. Gilreath is off to Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, then perhaps a Division-I school.

Searcy, meanwhile, will be without his catcher or his one-two pitching combination for the first time since, well, ever.

''I don't know what I'm going to do next year without them,'' Searcy said. ``You get to relying on people, and you always lean on them because they're always there, and it's like -- it's going be a new beginning for me.''

Fortunately for Searcy, that new beginning is many games away.