In 2010, the Daviess County softball family lost one of their own in Lauren Girten and while Lauren is always on the hearts and minds of the Lady Panthers, nearly every year since her death, one weekend during the season is dedicated to her in the annual Team Lauren Cancer Awareness Tournament.
DC coach John Biggs said Lauren continues to have an impact on the team and the program and added while they want to be the best softball program they can be, it’s more than about what they do off the field.
“When we were going through that battle with Lauren, it just kind of put everything into perspective and that year, when that happened, that was the first time for a lot of those kids they ever had to experience anything like that,” he said. “Some of them, a death, someone close to them period and let alone a teammate. That year really put a whole different perspective and we as coaches knew that we had to make an emphasis that yes softball is important but we need to look at the big picture. We want to grow kids and develop players but we also want to develop young ladies that are selfless and want to do things for the community.”
Lauren died in March 2010 and that season marked the first year for the tournament.
“Lauren was a sophomore, she’d been in our program since middle school, she hadn’t been at the varsity level yet, but it just put everything in perspective that year,” he said. “We decided we were going to have the tournament and that year it was more about fundraising and trying to help with medical expenses. It was just an overwhelming experience. Then we continued it after that and it was amazing because all these teams that come to it. They’re battling in their district, they’re trying to win a district. They’re battling to maybe state at some level but when they came here, it was like we all realized there was a common cause.”
Biggs said even though they’re in the biggest part of their season, the annual weekend is a chance for teams to let some of that pressure off and enjoy themselves.
The money raised from the tournament has even turned into a $1,000 scholarship.
“Any Daviess County kid can apply for that,” he said. “We’ve had some softball players that have some that but we’ve also had some kids that weren’t softball players.”
Biggs said several teams have played in the tournament with this weekend’s opponent Warren East being a mainstay.
Pleasure Ridge Park has also competed several times with their players also enjoying the tournament philosophy so much they wanted to carry it with them after graduated.
“Their seniors wanted that to be included in their yearbook in the softball part about Team Lauren,” he said.
Biggs said there are a couple of things he wanted his team to get out of this weekend.
“This year has just been different,” he said. “We’ve been really limited on a lot of things. We haven’t done any overnights. We haven’t done some of the other team bonding things that we would normally do. This was kind of a weekend where we’ve got all out JV and varsity here even though it’s just a varsity tournament and really trying to get these kids to come together as a group and not that they don’t support each other but it’s really a time to cement those relationships and know that we’re for each other.”
