Helsel signs with Olney Central

January 18, 2008 at 12:57 pm | In General

By TOBY BROWN, Times Sports Editor
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2008 4:17 PM CST
The Carmi Times

Rick Porter knows first-hand about the quality of softball players produced by Carmi-White County High School.

He coached against them for nine years while he was at Flora High School.

So it’s no surprise that Porter, who now serves as Olney Central College’s head softball coach, has made a Lady Bulldog his first signee of the year.

On Tuesday, Porter signed Carmi-White County senior pitcher/infielder Teddi Helsel to a national letter of intent to play for the Lady Blue Knights next season.

Though she missed a portion of her sophomore and junior seasons to injury, Helsel has put up some staggering numbers for coach Scott Conner’s Lady Bulldogs. In the circle, she has a career record of 14-1 with only 12 earned runs allowed in 96 innings. She’s fanned 60 while walking only 17 and given up just 76 hits and 19 total runs.

Her lone loss came at the Illinois High School Association Class A super-sectional against Carterville last spring. Two days prior, she had pitched a complete-game, four-hit, five-strikeout, no-walk gem in a 1-0 win over Pope County in the sectional final. It was just her fourth start of the season.

Helsel has also been at the heart of the Lady Bulldogs’ batting order, most often hitting cleanup and compiling a .349 career average.

“Teddi is going to help OCC because of her versatility,” said Conner. “I think that she can be an everyday player for them. She can not only be a pitcher, but she can also play either first or third base.

“The best thing about Teddi is that she has a great knowledge of the game. Teddi is someone who is going to make the right decision on the field. She has great hands defensively. She has gone through some rough times injury-wise during the past few years, but she’s working to get back to 100 percent and when she does that, she is going be even more capable than what she has already shown.”

Porter is in his second season as coach of the Lady Blue Knights after retiring from Flora High School, where he spent several years coaching softball and basketball.

“We’re looking for good things from Teddi,” said the OCC skipper. “We know she’s had some injury problems, but we think she’s well beyond those now and going to do nothing but get better. We’re attracted to Teddi because of her hitting. I haven’t seen her play a lot to see her make a lot of fielding plays, but I’ve seen her make a couple of real nice plays.

“She seems to have a good head on her shoulders, knows the game real well and doesn’t get rattled. She has a lot of good qualities. We’re looking for her to be a hitter in our lineup and take a turn at pitching.”

Helsel has also been a varsity basketball and tennis player in her CWCHS career, a fact that Porter sees as another big plus for her future.

“You really want players that have been there and experienced other things,” he said. “I know that Teddi has played a lot of other sports and I, for one, consider that in recruiting. If you’ve got an athlete who’s played other sports, they’ve been at the free throw line under pressure, they’ve been at the service line under pressure… That does make a difference.

“It’s the same thing when pitching. When it’s a 3-2 count and you have runners on, you can’t lay it in there; you have to make a quality pitch. She’s done that. On the other side of the coin, when you’re batting and you’re down 0-2, you have to be able to still come through. We think Teddi’s going to be able to do those things for us.”

Porter’s OCC squad had a very productive fall scrimmage season, beating Division I Indiana State 1-0 on Sept. 22 and winning the Gibson Southern Classic in Ft. Branch, Ind. Sept. 15 and 16. In that tournament, the Knights defeated one of the most respected juco programs in the country, Wabash Valley College, 9-5.

“By the end of the season,” said Porter, “we were really looking good in a lot of areas, so we’re looking to have a good spring.”

Present for Helsel’s signing on Tuesday were her parents, Larry and Angie, her younger sister, Madison, Conner, Porter and CWCHS athletic director Kurt Simon.