Blast From the Past: Sophia American Legion Post 169 wins the AL State Tournament

Sophia defeated defending state champion Parkersburg for the 1968 American Legion State title

Joe Goddard picture courtesy of Marshall Athletics

Baseball has always been the sport I loved the most.

The love for "The American Pastime" grew mostly from a time when I was five years old, roaming around the old baseball field at Mullens Athletic Complex watching American Legion baseball.

The team that my parents took me to watch was our local American Legion team at the time, Sophia Post 169.

Most people will recognize names like Joe Goddard, David "Scotty" Cuthbert and Steve Lickliter. However, that team was loaded with talented baseball players such as Bill Burgess, Albert "Chubby" Hughes, Eugene Gilkerson, Okey Calvert, Roger and Jerome Smyre, J.C. Jones, Kent Martin and Don Gibson, Don Neff, John Cook, Neal Hawkins and Louis Prunesti.

Goddard and Martin had been named to the All-State baseball team earlier that year playing for Sophia High School. Martin had also pitched a no-hitter in a legion contest against Logan. Hughes had two 20-strikeout games over seven innings in the regular season and two more 19-strikeout games.

Burgess and Calvert were the stoppers out of the bullpen.

Talented pitching was the staple for Sophia in the run to the title. Martin, Hughes and Gibson had a combined record of 22-2 entering the state tournament.

Now, being five years old at the time, my recollection was not in the details, but in the fun I had watching those guys play.

I have known Joe Goddard and Scotty Cuthbert for years now. I played against, and for, coach Goddard and worked on the Independence basketball staff for a few years with coach Cuthbert, who was an assistant for Chad Perkins.

I'm telling you, the bus rides with coach Cuthbert were great. As we traveled from place to place in southern West Virginia, he could tell some stories and the history buff inside me loved it.

Recently, during a rain delay at one of the Beckley Bash Post 32 games at Linda K. Epling Stadium, I was in the press box with coach Goddard and had the pleasure of talking to him briefly about that Sophia team which won the 1968 American Legion state championship.

Instantly, I was five again, running around the ball park watching, what at the time, seemed like giants play baseball.

The details of the championship run were simply amazing and the games were intense battles in front of huge crowds.

Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me, so I did some digging in the newspaper archives and followed Sophia's run to the title.

All of the information that follows is courtesy of The Raleigh Register, which is now the Register-Herald.

I will start the state championship journey in the Area Tournament where Sophia met Williamson in a best-two-out-of three series. Each game was a nine inning contest.

Game one was played at Mullens and Gibson pitched a gem. Gibson went nine innings and hurled a three-hit shutout with 13 strikeouts.

The only run of the game was scored in the bottom of the ninth when Cuthbert led off with a double and later scored via an error on Lickliter's hard ground ball.

Games two and three, if needed, moved to Williamson, but Sophia left no doubt in game two, outscoring the host team, 19-1, advancing to the American Legion Southern Regional Tournament.

Sophia pounded out 18 hits, including four from Hughes and three each from Goddard and Cuthbert. Jones ripped a two-run blast.

When the regional tournaments started, there were six teams playing for four spots in the state tournament.

Sophia, Huntington and South Charleston comprised the Southern Regional Tournament, while defending state champion Parkersburg, Morgantown and Weirton made up the Northern Regional Tournament.

South Charleston won the regional title that year, but thanks to Sophia's two wins over Huntington, it also qualified for the state tournament which took the top-two teams from each region.

The wins over the Cabell County crew were a measure of revenge as Huntington had eliminated Sophia in regional play a year earlier.

Playing in front of a crowd listed as approximately 1,500 people at Mullens Athletic Field, Sophia opened tournament play by hammering Morgantown.

The quote from Raleigh Register reporter Doug Hamlin was "It looked more like Sophia was taking batting practice as the Post 169 gang (hammered) out 16 hits and crossed the plate 17 times while Morgantown scored only one run."

Parkersburg and South Charleston, on the other hand, was a pitcher's duel that the defending state champions won, 1-0 in 10 innings.

South Charleston rebounded with a 5-1 win over Morgantown before Sophia advanced to the championship game with a 2-1 victory over Parkersburg.

Martin pitched his best game of the season for Sophia to take the win. The former Bluehawks ace allowed only two hits, with 15 strikeouts and just one free pass.

The run by Parkersburg was unearned.

The Sophia hurler was quoted as saying, "It was the best game I have pitched since high school. I've been having trouble with my control all summer until today."

Cuthbert and Hughes each had an RBI for Sophia.

Parkersburg beat South Charleston to set up a rematch with Sophia which grabbed a wild 9-8 victory that was anything but easy.

The game was far from a thing of beauty. Nine errors were committed in the game and five pitchers were needed to decide the winner.

After falling behind 3-0 early, Parkersburg roared back to take an 8-3 lead after seven innings of play.

Sophia's big move came in the eighth where it tallied five runs to tie the game, kick-started by Heff who hit a two-run homer and capped by a two-run double from Jones.

The game eventually went to the 10th-inning to be decided.

Steve Swisher reached on an error for the Wood County boys, but Sophia quickly doused the flame. Hughes, who pitched the last two innings without allowing a hit, or a walk, fanned the next two batters. Goddard recorded the third out when he cut-down Swisher trying to steal.

Almost fitting for the way the game transpired, Sophia won the game as the result of a Parkersburg error.

Jerome Smyre walked and moved to second on Goddard's fielder's choice. Smyre then beat the throw to third on Hawkins' sacrifice bunt.

After Smyre was thrown out at home on a ground ball with the bases loaded, Cuthbert hit a high chopper that was dropped on the infield, allowing Goddard to score the winning run.

Goddard, Cuthbert, Martin, Lickliter, Jones and Hughes were each named to the All-Tournament team.

Sophia advanced to the Eastern Region No. 2 Tournament in Bordentown, NJ, where it dropped two tight contests to end its magical run.

Coach Goddard is now an assistant coach for WVU Tech baseball, after a Hall of Fame career at Marshall University and a stint in Major League Baseball with the San Diego Padres. He also coached Independence to a state baseball title.

I am getting ready to turn 62 years old in a few days and coach Goddard has a few years on me, but when I talked with him for that brief time, he was clearly back to being a high school baseball player once again.

The game has changed some today, but for a few minutes it was great to step back in time with a player that I looked up to and a team that made me love baseball with all my heart.

I have said it all along, legends never go away in West Virginia sports.