Piedmont High softball coach, star daughter chase state championship dreams this weekend

Last week, Piedmont beat Union County rival Sun Valley in the N.C. 3A Eastern Regional softball championship game, and Panthers coach Jason Phelix found himself overcome with emotion.

He thought about the 2015 team that lost to Enka in the Final Four and returned all but two starters in 2016, then struggled to finish 16-9, unable to deal with high expectations. He thought about how far his current team had come after losing five starters, qualifying for the school’s first softball state final.

But most of all, he thought about his daughter, all-state senior outfielder Kyrah Phelix, and couldn’t believe he was getting to share such a memorable moment with his child.

“It was unreal, the scene last week,” Jason Phelix said. “It was just surreal. It was probably one of the best moments I’ve ever had in my coaching career, giving my daughter a hug at the end of that game.”

The Phelixes and Piedmont (24-3) begin play in the school’s first best-of-3 state championship series Friday night at N.C. State. The Panthers will face Hillsborough Orange (24-3), the same school Piedmont beat to win the N.C. 3A dual-team wrestling state championship in February.

Coach Phelix said this is the first Piedmont girls’ team, in any sport, to reach an NCHSAA championship game.

Two other Observer-area softball teams will play for state championships this weekend, too. In softball, Piedmont’s Union County neighbor and rival, Parkwood (22-2), is in the 2A state championship series Friday night at UNC Greensboro against South Granville (26-0). In 1A, North Stanly (22-4) will face Whiteville (23-5) at N.C. State.

Two area baseball teams are also still alive: In 3A, Crest High (21-6), from Boiling Springs, faces Northern Guilford (27-2) at Zebulon’s Five County Stadium on Friday. And in 2A, R-S Central (25-3) will play Edenton Holmes (26-2), also in Zebulon.

For Piedmont, coach Phelix said making the state championship is special. Making it with your daughter being a key cog makes it even sweeter.

“This year,” he said, “we took a different approach to the team. I always want my seniors to enjoy their senior year, and this being my daughter’s senior year, I wanted her to emjoy it as well. We had good expectations. We were hoping to win conference. Now this happens.”

This year’s team is powered by five hitters with better than a .400 batting average -- Kristen Delbane, Gracie Rape, Avery Bellai, Keeley Dunham and Gracie Gipson. Rape and Leigha Helms have five home runs each, and Rape, the team’s majority pitcher, is 22-3 with a 1.41 ERA in 159 innings.

Kyrah Phelix has started for her father since her sophomore year. The four-year varsity player bats .387 this season, hitting leadoff. She’s scored 31 runs and has seven RBIs. Kyrah was named all-conference the past three seasons and all-state twice. In January, a special-selection committee named her the Charlotte-area Hot Stove Player of the Year for the 2016 season.

“Her freshman year,” Jason Phelix said, “she was kind of a role player. Back then, she was just bunts and moving runners. She was batting at the bottom of the lineup. By her sophomore year, she had stepped into the leadoff (hitting) role and hasn’t looked back since.”

Now in his sixth season at Piedmont, Phelix -- a former assistant football coach at West Charlotte High -- said he’s had some frustrations coaching his daughter. He said sometimes people say Kyrah gets more opportunities because of her father being the coach.

“There’s definitely been some challenges,” Jason Phelix said. “But she’s done a really good job of blocking that out. The only way to describe her is that she’s a baller. She’s the kid with the dirtiest uniform. ...I’d like to take credit for some of that, being the coach of my daughter, but sometimes she’ll say things that I don’t think of.”

And now, the Phelixes have just a few games left. If this weekend can go anywhere near how last weekend went, when he watched his girls win a regional championship, Jason Phelix said he would live an “absolute dream.”

“There were so many things last weekend,” he said. “To see the excitement in the girls’ faces and to hear it in their voices. There were so many people at the game, and it was really fortunate for our kids to experience that kind of thing. ...

“This weekend, to do it again with my daughter, that would be difficult to put into words. But for us to be doing this as a team, what we’re doing right now, in their senior years, it just couldn’t have come at a better time.”

This story was originally published June 1, 2017 at 9:40 PM with the headline "Piedmont High softball coach, star daughter chase state championship dreams this weekend."