Loeffler's Link

Brooke Boessen of Blair Oaks stands at home plate with her mom, Kim, after the Lady Falcons won last year's district softball championship,

Back-to-back-to-back:
Lady Falcons headed
to Final Four yet again

Missing mom: Boessen going
to Final 4 without her No. 1 fan

Oct. 25, 2018

WARDSVILLE, Mo. --- When Kim Boessen was in the building, you knew it.

"When I was in the field," said Kim's oldest daughter Brooke Boessen, a Blair Oaks senior, "I could hear her all the way out in center field. On a pop fly, she'd be trying to tell me which way to go and how to catch it. 

"She was a very, very loud person and she was really outgoing, she could talk to anyone. She could talk to a brick wall."

Brooke and the Lady Falcons will be in Springfield for the Class 2 Final Four this weekend. But No. 1 fan Kim won't be there with them.

"My excitement level to go to the Final Four this year was not like everyone else's," Brooke said. "I was happy, but it's hard ... I'm missing one of the biggest parts of it."

Kim died last November after a four-year battle with cancer. She was only 42.

"Kim was a fighter in every sense of the word," Lady Falcons coach Sharon Buschjost said. "She did not give up easy on anything, even when she was faced with the end of her life."

In this year of firsts for Brooke and the Boessen family ---as in the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas without Kim --- this is the first softball season without mom, who was a distinguished softball player during her days with the Jefferson City Lady Jays.

The Lady Falcons' batting helmets have a small sticker on them that simply reads: KB

"As a team, we definitely wanted to let Brooke and Grace (Boessen, a freshman on the softball team) know that Kim would be with us as we played this season," Buschjost said. "Softball was a passion for her when she played it, and it became even more of a passion watching her kids play softball."

Buschjost's list of duties expanded far beyond coaching this past year.

"Brooke is a very matter-of-fact girl, she's very tough, But I don't care how tough you are, when you lose your mom at an early age ...," said Buschjost, her voice trailing off.

"There were a couple times during this season that Brooke had tears in her eyes," Buschjost continued. "And I said, 'Brooke, you're missing your mom right now, aren't you.' And she said, 'Yeah, it's just so hard, coach.'

"Being a coach for her wasn't the most important thing at that time, but rather just being a person who cared about her and wanted the best for her."

Kim taught her girls how to play the game, including youngest daughter Belle, a fifth-grader. But Brooke --- who's called a "special" player by Buschjost --- learned a lot more from her mom than just how to throw and catch and hit a softball.

"Don't take anything for granted, no matter what it is," said Brooke, fighting back tears. "Because you don't know when that person, or that (moment), can be taken away from you.

"The phone calls, I don't get those from her anymore, the text messages. Whenever I'm upset, I can't just call her and talk to her like I used to."

Brooke was an All-State player last season and will be again this year. But she's choosing not to play softball in college --- and it's certainly not because she couldn't.

She's second on the team in batting average (.519), while leading the team in home runs (10), doubles (17), RBI (44), runs scored (37) and slugging percentage (a gaudy .990).

"She wanted me to go play college ball," Brooke said, "but it's just not there anymore, because she's not there. I just didn't want to go through four more seasons without her.

"So this (Final Four) is for mom, because it's the last time I'll get to play on a competitive softball team."

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LAST YEAR, THE LADY FALCONS were one game away from winning the school's second state softball championship.

That wasn't the case in 2016 --- they were one inning away.

Now, the Lady Falcons are back for another shot, their third straight trip to the Final Four, their fifth in seven years, and their 10th in Buschjost's 23 seasons.

"We're all excited," Boessen said, "but we're also laid back, we're calm. We're not like, 'We've got to win,  we've got to win, we've got to play perfect.' We're going to show up at 2 o'clock Friday and play a game, and there's not anything else."

It's shaping up to be a great one when Blair Oaks (26-4) squares off against defending state champion Bowling Green (25-4) in a rematch of last year's title game 2 p.m. Friday at the Killian Softball Complex in Springfield.

"When you're facing the team that beat you in the championship game," Buschjost said, "there's nothing that's going to be easy about it. Especially since they're returning their pitcher, just like we are."

This will be a high-level matchup between two talented seniors --- Blair Oaks' Makenna Kliethermes, who's verbally committed to Oregon vs. Bowling Green's Sarah Harness, who's headed to Southern Illinois.

Harness won the battle against Kliethermes last year, tossing a three-hitter and striking out nine in Bowling Green's 6-1 win. Boessen had one of those hits, a triple, and the team's only RBI.

"She has some heat on her and she hits her spots very well," Boessen said of Harness. "And their catcher (Gabi Deters) is really good. They're a good battery, they work together very well."

Kliethermes didn't get any help from her friends in the loss, as the Lady Falcons committed four errors that led to three unearned runs.

"It was a very uncharacteristic game for us," Buschjost said. "What unfolded was nothing I had pictured."

Said Boessen: "We let them beat us last year ... they showed up ready to play, and we didn't. We beat ourselves, but I think it's a whole new game this year for them and for us."

Buschjost said there's plenty of enthusiasm running through the school about another trip to the Final Four. Well, at least she suspects there's plenty of enthusiasm.

"I think the excitement level is high, but --- and this is the element of not teaching this year and not being  at school --- it's a little different dynamic," said Buschjost, who's in her first year of retirement as a teacher. "But knowing what a Final Four appearance means to Blair Oaks, I know the excitement is high.

"If they could let me pick and choose one or two weeks out of the school year, this week would be one of them."

The Lady Falcons advanced to Springfield on the heels of a 10-0 quarterfinal win over Warsaw on Saturday at the Falcon Athletic Complex. There were tears of joy ... and tears for another reason.

"After that win, Brooke and I had a brief moment off to the side," Buschjost said. "I just gave her a hug, kissed her cheek and said, 'Your momma would be proud.'"

Earlier, we noted that Kim wouldn't be in Springfield this weekend ... but that's not really true.

"I think she's with me 24-7, no matter what I'm doing," said Brooke, once again choking back tears. "On the field, off the field, with my friends, with my family doing whatever, she's watching and making sure I stay out of trouble.

"No one can take her spot, no one can ever match her. After the games, I'd go and talk to her and spend time with her. She'd be like, 'Oh, you're in the newspaper again,' and she'd clip all the newspaper stories out and save them.

"Not having her anymore, it's just hard. But I can still hear her voice."

Loud and clear.