All season, Northern Nash softball coach Greg Tharrington said he wanted to challenge his players. He did not care about statistics, no matter how much emphasis some players and some parents might place on the numbers. And he did not care, to a degree, about wins.

But through a nonconference schedule littered with teams that had qualified for the NCHSAA 3-A and 4-A state playoffs a season ago – including two of the seven other teams that remain in the 3-A playoffs now – Tharrington said he did care about teaching his players a handful of lessons. Like how to play top teams. And how to hang with top teams. And, more often than not, how to beat top teams.

The plan worked. The Knights finished 5-3 against nonconference opponents, including a home-and-home split with the Erwin Triton Hawks, the same team the Knights will play at 5 p.m. today in the 3-A sectional championship game.

"We didn\'t pad the schedule," Tharrington said. "We could have. ... We could have padded stats, and looked good for the newspaper, and made all these girls look good, or we could be standing right here. And we chose to be standing here."

Here is among the eight teams that are alive in the 3-A playoffs, among the eight teams with a shot at a state championship. The Knights (21-4), who beat the Southern Alamance Patriots on Wednesday, 11-10, with rallies in the bottom of the fourth and seventh innings, had not advanced this far since they turned from slow-pitch softball to fast-pitch more than a decade ago. Heck, they had not won a playoffs game during that span.

Until this run through the first three rounds of the playoffs – three wins, each historic for the program – the only hints of faded glory was a large wood sign in left field that reminded the Knights each afternoon that, 21 years ago, Northern Nash had won a 4-A slow-pitch state crown.

Now, the Knights will play the Hawks (21-5), the top seed out of the Cape Fear Valley Conference and a regular-season opponent.

Northern Nash lost at Triton, 1-0, on March 5. That game unfolded at night in temperatures that dipped into the 40s and made each swing a painful exercise. Triton scored the only run in the bottom of the second inning.

"That was one of our first big games and the girls were really nervous," Tharrington said. "And being at their place, that made them a little more nervous. But we knew we were going to go on the road and play the hard teams this season. To be honest with you, that\'s why we\'re here right now."

Two weeks later, the Knights beat the Hawks, 5-1, at Northern Nash.

Those games spotted a nonconference schedule that also included losses to Greenville Conley, another team that is still playing, and 4-A power Greenville Rose, and wins over Havelock, Oxford Webb and South Johnston. Those games propelled the Knights through an 11-1 record in NEW 6 Conference play and three playoffs wins.

"I told the girls that if we play those games and learn something, we\'ll be better," Tharrington said. "And that\'s what happened."

Matt LaWell can be reached at 407-9952 or mlawell@coxnc.com