Streator’s ‘Night of Champions’ celebrates 1983 state championship team, community

STREATOR – Former Streator High School athletic director Ralph Sterrett both got a chuckle and perfectly summed up the feelings of the room Saturday at the Night of Champions event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Streator High School softball team’s magical run to the one-class IHSA state championship on June 10, 1983.

“We’ve never forgotten,” Sterrett said, “and 40 years from now, I’m looking forward to seeing you all again.”

The Night of Champions at Streator’s PNA Hall drew over 100 community members to reminisce about Streator’s storied 1983 state championship, the first team sports championship in La Salle County history and still the only team sports championship in Streator High School annals.

Sterrett, original Streator Girls Softball board member Julie Ramza, emcee Richard O’Hara and Streator mayor Tara Bedei – who read a proclamation dedicating it “Champions Day” in honor of the team and presented the street sign that will be erected onto the portion of Glass Street to be named “Honorary Lady Bulldog Way” – all took the stage. So did members of the reunited ballclub, which has been inducted into both the Streator High School Athletic Hall of Fame and the Shaw Local Illinois Valley Sports Hall of Fame.

The team, which upset defending state champion Quincy Notre Dame 2-1 in the state semifinals before a 6-2 victory over Rich Central in the championship game in Pekin, included head coach A.T. Mogill assisted by Sue McGrath and Delbert Cosek; scorekeeper Helen Mogill; student managers Brian Petrotte and Joe Yanello; and players Julie Zavada, Maria White, Julie Weiss, Gina Wahl, Brenda Simpson, Gina Morgan, Carleen Seroka, Dana Gotch, Marcia Eccleston, Lynn Yanello, Linda Weiss, RayAnn Simpson, Amy Pedelty, Alexandra “Zami” Mogill, LuAnn Kozak, Peggy Killian, Kim Hansen, Jean Essman and Lori Dorsam.

A full dozen of those players were on hand Saturday evening on a night the team insisted was put together to commemorate the community that supported them 40 years ago every bit as much as it was to commemorate the anniversary of the state championship itself.

“We are symbolically sharing [the state championship trophy] and presenting it to you all as a community,” Zami (Mogill) Hay said. “Because it really was a community success that we had, not the success of the individual students on the team.”