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SPRINGFIELD — Justin Williams doesn't know how he created The Voice. He can't even describe it well, except to say, "If my spirit stepped outside my body, I would annoy the heck out of myself."

To get an idea of The Voice, watch the scene in "Dumb and Dumber" where Jim Carrey's Lloyd asks Harry, "Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?"

Put that sound into sentence form, and you've got what Williams, a junior third baseman, has created. He brings it out every game to inspire the North High School baseball team and harass the opposition.

"The Voice in the dugout just kind of keeps the momentum going," Williams says. "Even through rough times when we're not playing so well, it still makes people laugh."

Pitch to Mitch

The team needs laughs in the season's third week, which illustrates well the up-and-down path "The Final Season" will take.

The week begins with a 4-2 loss to Lebanon on April 14. Then on Wednesday, April 16, senior Mitch Monke takes the mound at Xenia.

The teaching and learning never stop during a season. This story is a good example.

Before the Xenia game, pitching coach Doug Stoll visits with Monke in the bullpen.

"You've got to trust me," Stoll says.

A week earlier, Stoll questioned whether Monke was listening to his pitch selection in a 17-5 loss to Vandalia Butler. They experienced the same problem a year ago. In a loss to Fairmont, Stoll told Monke he could call his own pitches if he didn't like the ones chosen for him.

"It didn't change a thing," Stoll says now.

It wasn't the pitch calls, Stoll told Mitch, but the location of the pitches. Stoll saw doubt in Mitch's eyes, and as a former pitcher himself, Stoll knows doubt can derail a pitcher.

Today's game increases in importance, not just for the Panthers, who would hate to start the week 0-2, but for Monke. The Butler loss stung, he says, "but you've got to bounce back from that." He learns from every single game he plays, and he has help. His dad, Lowell, video tapes his at-bats and starts, puts it all on a computer and gives his son the opportunity to watch himself.

Stoll even advises Monke on his delivery after seeing a photo in the newspaper.

"He said my arm slot looked low," Monke says, "and he was right."

The adjustments to his delivery and his confidence, plus the lessons learned in the loss to Butler, pay off against Xenia. Monke strikes out 12 in a 6-2 victory.

"He went out and was lights out," says Stoll two days after the win.

In his next big start, Monke fans 13 in a defeat of Beavercreek on April 21.

Mark's mom

Pat Stoll doesn't know what her son Mark is going to do next year without baseball. She doesn't know what she's going to do. She doesn't know what Mark's wife Debbie is going to do either.

"In my family, everybody loves baseball," Pat says. "Baseball is really our heart and soul, and it is Mark's."

Mark Stoll's final season as North's head baseball coach marks the end of an era and the beginning of the great unknown for him and his family. That includes his 81-year-old mother Pat, who has lived across the street from Mark and Debbie since they bought her a house two years ago.

Every home game, Pat drives herself to the game. Then the team's student manager, Devon Bader, picks her up at the bottom of the gravel driveway in a golf cart and drives her up the hill to the field.

Next year, Pat plans to keep attending games of the new Springfield High School team, but it will be different without Mark on the field.

"My mom, this is her social life," Mark says. "She lives for North baseball. She's going to miss this place."

Super superstitious

Mark and Doug Stoll might sum up the North baseball experience by equating it to a family, or by talking about its success — a 388-235 record entering this week with just four losing seasons in 25 years — but the most interesting thing about the Panthers might be their superstitions.

Baseball puts the "super" in superstitious, but the Panthers step it up a notch.

Witness Williams today, April 23, in a 12-3 victory over Wayne. He sits down after making the second out in the fifth inning, then spits and stands up. The team gets a hit. He spits and stands again. Every pitch of the inning, as North scores eight runs, he spits and stands.

"Everyone has their thing," Williams says.

It starts with the coaches. The Stolls infect the whole team with their superstitions. Pat Stoll passed her superstitious beliefs down to her sons, Doug says.

Mark eats the same thing for lunch every day: turkey sandwich with cheese, Coke Zero and Mott's applesauce.

"People make fun of me all the time," Mark says.

Doug eats a turkey sandwich every day, too.

Mark asks the bus driver to take the same route to certain schools. They have a lucky pencil for the scorebook. Last year, Mark made the team wear the same white pants with red stripes eight games in a row during a winning streak.

"They're not the most comfortable pants," Mark says. "But we're not going to mess with winning."

Doug puts a notch on his hat for wins and losses after every game.

Mark often does laundry for the team. He washes his own uniform separately, always using Fab detergent. Doug washes his own uniform, too. One night this season, Debbie washes Mark's uniform.

"What'd you wash the uniform in?" Stoll asks her.

"Cheer," Debbie says.

"OK," says Mark, who then washes the uniform again with Fab.

Perfect week

The Voice never slumps, but Justin Williams does.

His bat is cold. Even the Reddy Heater, which warmed the players in the dugout during the cold days of April, won't save Williams. He has to find his stroke on his own.

"Keep your head up," senior Joey Borders says after the Wayne win.

"I'm all right," Williams says. "I'm all right."

In the postgame huddle, Williams keeps a positive attitude.

"I just want to say one thing," he tells his teammates. "I'll strike out the rest of my career at North as long as we keep winning."

North posts a 6-0 mark in the fourth week of the season. On April 25, the team rides the bus to Carleton Davidson Stadium to play South for the second-to-last time.

The Panthers take batting practice at North before the bus ride. Doug pitches to the players, blowing bubbles with his sleeves rolled up and rocking out as the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" plays over the loudspeakers.

Behind the batting cage, assistant coach Mike Schilling watches Williams bat.

"You can hit," he tells Williams. "You know you're capable of hitting."

The players pack Mark's Nissan truck with their bags and equipment. He drives to the game separately.

In the dugout before the game, Mark senses the players are nervous about facing their future teammates.

"Just have fun," Stoll says. "What's the worst that could happen?"

For Williams, the worst result would be a loss. He and the Panthers record a win, however, and Williams breaks out of his slump — for the moment, at least — by going 2-for-3.

"He's back," one player says after Williams' first hit.

"Slump no more," Williams says after his second.

The Panthers beat the Wildcats 10-0. A year from now, Williams will call himself a Wildcat. He's not nervous about that. He knows many of the South players who will be his teammates.

But he will miss everything that makes North the program it is — and that starts with Mark Stoll.

"Coach Stoll's a good man," Williams says. "He does a lot for the players. He's there to help you learn the game, but he's also teaching you a life lesson when he does it."

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