Cancer survivor among stars of team headed to state championship
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Every pom tossed, every horn blown, and every cheer from every mouth was for the Lady Colts softball team Thursday night. The Cape Fear High School gymnasium had an electric energy during a send-off to the State Championship pep rally.
This is truly their year.
"When they come out here, and by this time of year, it's just like a machine, said Coach Mack Page, snapping his fingers as he watched his girls practice ahead of the celebration. "They get out there. They know what to do. They don't play around."
And Page, alongside Coach Jeff McPhail knew they had no time to play around a few years back, when they first laid eyes on their freshman star, Hailey Cashwell.
"When she was over there at Mac Williams, we tried to get her momma to let her skip the seventh and eighth grade and come on over here," said Page, doubling over in laughter with McPhail. "She is by far the quickest out of the box we've ever had. There's fast and there's quick and she's both."
"She a great athlete, and she's a great kid," added McPhail.
To those attributes, you can add the 15 year old is a cancer survivor.
It was 2009, when the mother of one Cashwell's friends notice a lump in her neck. The doctors initially thought it was a harmless cyst, but when they removed it, they discovered it was thyroid cancer-a rare occurrence in such a young body.
"I just knew that God would take care of me," Cashwell said matter-of-factly.
The diagnosis changed Cashwell's life, and took her off the softball field for six months.
"I had to go on a diet, where I couldn't eat anything with salt, so my mom had to cook everything so I know that was hard on her," she remembered. "And I had to be separated, isolated in my room. I took radioactive iodine, so (I did that so) it didn't get on any of my family or friends."
Doctors at UNC, who performed two surgeries on Cashwell, needed to make sure salt wasn't interfering with body scan results. Within two years, Cashwell said she'd been declared cancer-free, and she went straight to the Varsity team when she arrived to Cape Fear High School.
She then went from cancer survivor, to state record-breaker when she made 22 consecutive hits at bat. Her faith remains strong, even as she continues to take several medications to battle a cancer comeback. The entire experience leaves her determined, and her teammates inspired.
"I believe prayer heals everything, and if you pray to God about it, He'll heal it," said Cashwell.
"What a blessing it is," said senior teammate, Mary Williams. "Just for her to come out of her surgeries and her cancer like that and be what she is to this team."
"It's amazing," added McPhail, shaking his head.
As the talented group of players head to Raleigh Friday night to face off against Western champs Alexander Central High School, the win is the only thing on their mind.
"We're going to show 'em why we're there," declared Williams.
"Just makes me want to do it all now and get that ring, "smiled Cashwell.
