For almost a decade and a half, Chance Cain has been a key part of softball coaching staffs across the county.

Whether it was as an assistant at Cherokee for the 1998 and ’99 seasons, or as an assistant for Sequoyah’s 2006 state championship team, Cain has often been apart of a program’s success, though he himself had never been the one to lead a team to it.

At the beginning of 2011, Cain was given a shot to prove his merit as a head coach when he took the reins at Creekview.

With the majority of his peers voting him as the 2012 Cherokee Tribune Softball Coach of the Year only two seasons later, there’s no doubt that he has succeeded.

Cain not only led Creekview to a second-place finish in the Region 7AAAAA tournament — just behind eventual state runner-up Pope — but he was also the only coach in the county to lead his team to the second round of the state playoffs. That’s a feat Cain has managed to do two years in a row.

Cain was just as humble as he was excited when he learned that of the six coaches in the county — three of which led their teams to the state playoffs this year — his peers had voted him as the best one.

“I’m very honored — humbly honored you could say — to be chosen as the coach of the year,” Cain said. “To be given the award by my peers is pretty special. Any six of the coaches in the county could be in this spot.”

It came as no surprise that, when Cain was asked why he felt his team had such a successful season, he was quick to credit his coaching staff.

“I can’t do anything just as one person. We have three assistant coaches in Angie Beal, Kristi Townley, and Kevin Wildes that work really hard and these girls really benefit from. I don’t even say assistant — I say we are just a bunch of coaches, and I just happen to have ‘head coach’ beside my name.”

With his coaching staff, as well as Cherokee Tribune Softball Player of the Year Ashley Chumbler and all-county pitcher Gracie Dorr returning next year, Cain firmly believes Creekview will be able to break its recent second-round ceiling and make it to the elite eight in the state playoffs.

“Our ultimate goal is to get down to Columbus and to fight for a state championship,” Cain said. “Though we’ve fallen short the last two years, it’s our goal again next year. I’m not going to say we just hope to be there — we plan on it. We’re going to come out here and bust our butts in the summer and get after it again.”