The Grind, presented by Bank of Clarendon: Clarendon Hall's Yount caps off career with fifth trip to state, jersey retirement

During the last five years, if you pulled up to the diamond at Clarendon Hall on a game night, you'd see a few staples. A raucous dugout would be jamming out to some Christian music, hooting and hollering in support of their teammates. The scoreboard rarely affected that scene, though more often than not, the Lady Saints had a crooked number in their favor.
At the center of all of that fun and success was the girl in the circle, Calli Yount. After missing most of her first varsity season as an eighth-grader to injury, Yount was the ace of the Lady Saints as they won three consecutive state championships amid a run of five straight trips to the SCISA state championship series in three different classifications. The final run to state was a heartbreaking loss to Pee Dee Academy in the 3A championship two weeks ago, which brought an end to her stellar high school career.
Calli's winning smile always gave Clarendon Hall the confidence that they were going to pull out a win against any opponent. They were generally correct to put their faith in the tall right-hander.
"Personally, being as smiley and happy as I am, I think positivity plays a huge role (in our success). You talk about the cheering we do in the dugout, but also the fans. We truly have the best families, the best fans. Maybe I'm biased, but it is the environment. You can just feel the joy of the Lord in it, honestly," Calli said. "After the state game, the Pee Dee coach came up to me and said, 'I noticed how happy you were no matter what was going on around you.' I was like, 'That's because you can't contain the joy of the Lord.' That was super cool because that's not just how I feel, that's how all the girls feel.
"Also, during that game, while I was playing center field, I told the fellow outfielders, 'Look around. We're losing right now, but take it in because look at how many people love us. That is just a true reflection of how much the Lord has blessed us with these families. It's super cool to have the people that love us and care for us like this town and small community does."
YOUNG CORE
Clarendon Hall's success on the diamond started long before any of the Lady Saints were playing varsity or even JV softball. Early on, the last two graduating classes from Clarendon Hall played rec ball, though they didn't all play together from the jump. Calli was playing opposite many of her friends and future championship teammates, stepping in the circle for the first time out of necessity. While they didn't all play for the same team, they all wanted to get better together. Their dads got together and decided to call on a friend, Bill Royce and his daughter Gracyn, to help Calli, Mandy Wells and Colleen McIntosh develop as pitchers, while Skylar Dymond handled catching duties. They soon graduated from rec ball and formed a new travel ball team, the Savages, which was led by Clarendon Hall coaches Jackie McIntosh and Shannon Corbett.
"I think one of the biggest keys to success for these girls individually and the success they found as a team is that continuity over the years. Each summer, spending a lot of time together on the ball field, getting up early Saturday morning and following through with that commitment to get better," said Ken Wells, Mandy's father and a coach to many of the Lady Saints. "That continuity among this group, Calli obviously being a leader among that group, has been the most rewarding thing as coach and as a dad and as just a fan of softball. Our approach as a travel ball organization was not to go out and win tournaments every weekend. Our goal was to bring girls from Clarendon Hall, Laurence Manning, Wilson Hall and Sumter High, those girls that were really willing to put the work in and improve their skills and take that improvement back to help their respective schools succeed."
The Savages eventually became the Sparks before they graduated to high school ball at an early age. Calli really only had one year of JV softball, as one season was erased by COVID-19. As an eighth-grader, she was making the jump to varsity softball.
"My seventh-grade summer is when I started realizing that maybe I'm decent at softball," Calli said. "I can remember being out on the field over here pitching with coach Gracyn and Bill Royce and hitting 60 miles per hour. I was like, 'Oh my goodness, I feel like I'm really young to be hitting these speeds.' So I was really excited about that, knowing that possibly in my eighth-grade year I could be on varsity."
AN EARLY HURDLE
Unfortunately for Calli, that wasn't the only news she got that summer. As it turns out, Calli had scoliosis. She'd experienced some back pain but nothing that kept her from playing. A 60-degree curve in her back was definitely more than she ever could have expected. The decision was made that she would have surgery that spring. Calli played in four games before her first chance at varsity came to an end.
"Basically, it was a spinal fusion," Calli said of the procedure. "They filleted me like a fish and opened me up and put two rods, 16 screws and four hooks in my back. Just leaving enough space for me to touch my toes. I just went for a visit a couple of months ago, and the doctor was like, 'If I had fused you a centimeter more, you wouldn't have been able to pitch.' I was just like, 'Wow.' It was definitely a time."
Softball was always at the front of Calli's mind. While she was in the hospital, her dad brought her a ball, which was always within arm's reach. She would sit in a chair and work on the snap of her wrist required to deliver pitches. Still, Calli was concerned she'd never properly get to pick up a softball again.
"It was like, 'Man, am I going to be able to pitch again?' To be honest, I don't think me and my family were prepared for what this surgery involved," Calli said. "Coming out on the flip side of surgery, it was like an eight-hour surgery, I could not move. I could not walk, I could not stand up. It was very difficult. I can remember being at our house and literally learning how to walk again, and I was like, 'I'm crazy for thinking that I can pitch again.' But the Lord had other plans, and he has been so good to give me those abilities back."
Slowly but surely, Calli recovered. She was able to start practicing again about nine months after her surgery. While the process was far from swift, Calli found solace in the quote, "It's a slow process, but quitting won't speed it up." So, she worked bit by bit, relearning how to walk properly long before tweaking her rise ball.
While Calli was trying to recover, her teammates were taking their first steps in what would develop into a dynasty at Clarendon Hall. The Lady Saints survived a wild SCISA 1A state tournament — a Saturday where they had to rush because most of the team and coaching staff was involved in a wedding later that day — winning their final game to set up a championship series against Wardlaw. All the while, Calli was in the dugout cheering on her teammates as much as she could.
"This is where you could tell she was going to be a special player because she was still a part of the success that year," head coach Jeff Bays said. "Even after her surgery, there was a couple of times she rode the bus, she brought a pillow and went with the team. She was with the team an awful lot, even after her surgery. You could tell she was in a lot of pain here and there, but she stuck it out to travel some with us."
The Lady Saints were ultimately swept in that series, as an inexperienced bunch that was built around freshmen and eighth-graders made costly mistakes in both games. But Clarendon Hall also knew that reinforcements were coming in both Calli and Skylar, who was sidelined by a knee injury.
"Calli was sitting there on the bench in the dugout after we lost that state championship series to Wardlaw. I walked over to the coach, and I pointed to her sitting on the bench and said, 'Hey, Coach, you see No. 18 sitting on the bench there? I just want to be clear that she will be back next year, and she will beat you in the state championship series,'" Ken recalled. "She fulfilled that promise. She put the work in, and it was an extraordinary process to watch."
THREE-PEAT
After losing that first state championship series, Clarendon Hall went on an unstoppable run. They started with a trip back to the 1A state championship series, where they met Wardlaw once again. This time, they were the team bringing out the brooms, winning the championship series on the same field their season ended the year prior.
"I'll be honest, it feels like a dream that I had that didn't happen because we were so young," Calli said of that first title. "It was kind of hard to comprehend, 'Hey, we just won state. This is something that our coach has always talked about being a huge deal, and we just did it.' Truly the Lord is the one that did it because we were so young, and He's given us all of these abilities, and it's really cool to see them put to use.
"When I saw that team win that night, it really felt like we're not done yet. The Lord still has so many big plans ahead and, as we see, he did."
The next spring, Clarendon Hall made the jump up to 2A. Calli and the Lady Saints welcomed that challenge with open arms.
"Moving divisions didn't change the mindset, which I thought was really cool," Calli said. "The end goal is still the end goal. Playing Calhoun the next year, it was almost like we wanted to win it even more."
The spring of 2023 may have been Calli's most impressive run as an individual. The Lady Saints met up with Calhoun Academy for the state championship series, and Calli was a workhorse in the circle. She pitched every inning of what developed into a three-game series. After a 4-0 loss on the road in the opener, Calli tossed a shutout at home in Game 2, scattering three hits with 10 strikeouts. She pitched another gem at Patriot Park in the finale, allowing two runs on six hits while striking out 12. Across all three games, she struck out 34 batters and closed out the series with three strikeouts in the final inning as Calhoun tried to make a comeback in the seventh.
"I just remember when she struck out that last batter when they were threatening to tie the game in that last inning, that's probably my best memory as it relates to the state championship series," Ken said. "She had to pitch all three games in that series, and she carried the team all the way through."
Calli then split time in the circle in 2024 as the Lady Saints became back-to-back 2A champs with a sweep of Colleton Prep. Colleen got the start in the final game of her high school career before Calli came in to seal the victory. Clarendon Hall sent off the first half of their championship core with that title, which made it a bittersweet win for Calli and her classmates.
"I think a lot of us (who were) juniors last year felt like it was our senior year mainly because we were losing that core group, and we were so close with them," Calli said. "Losing that core group and them leaving and not being able to come back and play with us, it was definitely a challenge, but winning state that year was super special because we were like, 'This could be it.' This is it for the group that's here, and we wanted to win it for them. The Lord blessed us in that, also, and gave us a third."
NEW PRESSURE
Calli came into her senior season with a different kind of pressure. She and the Lady Saints are used to having a target on their backs, but Calli had often been able to share the load in the circle. After Colleen graduated, Calli was the last experienced pitcher in the circle. Two youngsters, Brynli Brewer and Sunshine Brown, both had their fair share of innings this spring, but Clarendon Hall's hopes of a run to the 3A state championship series was going rest squarely on Calli's shoulders.
"There was definitely a little bit of pressure, just knowing my job and my place. I was kind of in my mind thinking, 'Have I put in enough work, have I worked hard enough to where I can lead this team?' Not just physically, but also mentally. I think a lot of us seniors talked about that with the younger girls, just being confident in who they are and confident in the Lord and realizing our identity is not in this sport, our identity is in the Lord, and he gives us this ability, so use them and work hard.
"We had to be the leaders in that, and I think it was really cool like Sunshine, as a seventh-grader come up and just grow in every position she played on the field. And Brynli, also, just gaining that confidence as the years go by. That is my hope for them. Me graduating and leaving, I do hope they can realize those things and just put the work in."
The Clarendon Hall senior also had to make some adjustments in the circle, as she had a new person calling pitches for the first time. For most of her pitching career, Coach Jackie called her pitches. He decided not to coach this spring after his daughter graduated, so Matthew Martens came in and assumed the role. While it certainly came with an adjustment period, Calli and Matthew became a great duo.
"Losing Coach Jackie this year was definitely difficult mentally and within the game because we love him so much, and he's been so good to us," Calli said. "When we gained Coach Matthew as a coach, at first we had to learn each other. We had to be patient with it. He very much so takes fault for things that sometimes are not his fault. Nothing is anybody's fault because we're learning each other. I think we're both very patient with each other. It was a challenge at first, but as the season went on, it was so wonderful having him call pitches. We just got a rhythm, and it was a lot of fun."
With a new pitching coach in hand, Calli and the Lady Saints made yet another run to a SCISA state championship. Unfortunately, Clarendon Hall ended their dynastic run the same way they started, with a pair of losses in the championship series. Tears were shed, but there were also a lot of smiles. The Lady Saints still danced in the dugout and sang along with their blaring music. While there were tears, they had nothing to do with the final result of their series with Pee Dee Academy.
"There were a lot of tears shed, but I can promise that it wasn't so much over losing the championship series. While that's why we were out there playing and we weren't happy that we lost, most of the tears that were shed out there were over the bond that these girls had made," Jeff said. "They knew that this was the last time playing with each other, and they had made such a strong bond; all of these girls were sisters out there. Having Calli's attitude really drove a lot of that."
Calli had a smile on her face when she accepted the runner-up trophy after the loss. As the Lady Saints shared hugs and tears, she lifted Sunshine on her shoulders with the championship trophy, showing her younger teammate the importance of earning that trophy despite the loss.
"Playing in the state games every year of a varsity career, even in my eighth-grade year when I was on the sideline, was very much so an incredible experience," Calli said. "This year, we were like, 'We can't not make it to state because we have all these years. We at least have to make it.' It's definitely been a blessing because that stage, I know when I was in eighth grade it was definitely scary, and I'm sure it was for the young girls on our team this year, but growing up being on it every single year was super cool. Especially this year, being able to enjoy it and look around and not have any nerves and just really take it in and realize that this is a cool moment that the Lord's given us."
Perhaps most importantly, the last game of her high school career was played at home. The Clarendon Hall community gathered around this group for one final time in Summerton on a special night.
"I think the most enjoyable component of that was that we were able to play that last game at home. That was something that I know they wanted and we as parents wanted," Ken said. "After all the crowd had faded away and there were just a few folks left, we walked out on the field and took a moment in prayer together, listening to a song we all loved, and as we stood on the field, we had the lights turned out. It was just symbolic on closing a chapter and celebrating success. It was an extraordinary time, and we're very grateful for the time that the Lord allowed us to compete and have fun together. It really has been a blessing."
A DIFFERENT BREED
Calli's success in the circle comes from two sources: her excellent mix of pitches and her personality.
Her numbers on the rubber speak for themselves. Across her career, Calli pitched 274 1/3 innings for the Lady Saints with a pristine 2.24 ERA. She struck out 453 batters, blowing past her career goal of 400 with four games left in the regular season this spring. She uses a mix of her nasty curveball and hard rise ball to keep batters on the back foot all game long.
"She's got a curveball that is almost impossible to hit when it's working," Jeff said. "If she hangs it, it can be trouble."
Jeff and Calli also both give credit to her catcher, Skylar, for contributing to her success. Calli was the unanimous choice for region player of the year this spring, but Jeff wanted to make sure her batterymate got the credit she deserved, as Skylar was named the co-player of the year.
"I've never really given Skylar the credit that she deserves," Jeff said. "The two of them have been such a huge team. Talking with Coach Jackie last year, Calli is not the pitcher that she is without Skylar back there behind the plate. Skylar catches all the bullpens, she's catching every pitch in that game, and she's putting in the same amount of work. Calli is extremely tough to catch. We saw that because AC (Martens) is a great catcher, and when Skylar got hurt against Calhoun, we had to put AC behind the plate. AC hadn't caught her a lot, and you could tell the struggle she had catching her. I won't even catch her; I'm afraid to catch, to be honest.
"I thought it fitting that they both started off with injuries and worked their way back up to be the team that they were on the mound and behind the plate."
Skylar was always the conduit between pitching coach and pitcher, which Calli didn't take for granted.
"One thing that's really cool is we just have a rhythm of where she sets up, and she always pays attention to where the batter is," Calli said. "We're leaving now, so it doesn't matter, but she's always paying attention to where the batter is standing in the box, and we're communicating that with the person that's calling the pitches. When that's being communicated between us three, then they're relaying back what pitch is necessary for that batter. It's not just, 'Oh I pitch these same three pitches every batter.' It's just being intentional with that."
Then there's her personality. Calli is as competitive as they come, but you might not always see it on her face. While she gets serious in the circle, you can typically see a grin on her face as she stands on the rubber. The rest of the team feeds off her positivity.
"That can-do attitude and that smile on her face, that's Calli's trademark. That's what she'll be remembered for most is always having that positive attitude and that smile on her face no matter what the circumstances are. That's something that spilled over to the rest of the team, as well," Ken said. "Even that night when we lost that final game, there were some tears that were shed, but they weren't so much about losing the game as they were things coming to an end. Not only did this team know how to win, but they knew how to lose, as well, and that's extremely important."
Calli's winning smile was so disarming that it sometimes made her difficult to coach. Jeff still remembers one moment during their first championship series with Wardlaw. Calli stood on first as McKenley Wells hit a single to right. Jeff tried to get Calli to go from first to third, but the then-freshman was watching the ball, not her head coach. She eventually broke for third late and narrowly avoided a tag at third.
"I look at her, wondering, 'How am I going to fuss at her for what she just did?'" Jeff said. "I didn't really fuss, I just looked at her as easy as could and said, 'Calli, you know you have to pick me up going into second base.' It was just very difficult to fuss at her. She gives you that little smile and says, 'OK, Coach Jeff, I'm sorry.' I'm like, 'Don't apologize, just make sure you learn from it.'"
But don't let that smile fool you; Calli always came to work. She didn't get batters out because she grinned at them; she was always prepared to be the best player on the field.
"It was very unique to watch that they would get to practice a half an hour to an hour early to get some extra work in, and when practice was over, it was, 'Hey, Coach, can you toss me a few more balls? I want to get a few more swings in.' That is the kind of attitude and work ethic that every coach dreams about, and Calli has been one of those kids, for sure," Ken said.
JERSEY RETIREMENT
Calli and Mandy both had their jerseys retired at Clarendon Hall as their careers came to an end this spring. It was a particularly touching moment for Ken, as he felt like two of his daughters were earning the honor.
"It was really cool to witness that. After the award ceremony, Gracyn Royce getting her jersey down — actually, it was Calli's idea, she went and got Gracyn's jersey off the wall, and the three of them had their picture taken together. Gracyn played a tremendous role in the success that Calli found, for sure," Ken said. "Obviously, that's a big deal, retiring a jersey. It's just a testimony to the success those girls found. They put up some significant numbers. As a dad, I couldn't be more proud of Mandy, and as a coach and a friend, I couldn't be more proud of Calli. Those accolades are well deserved. To be clear, it was a team effort. Kids like Skylar Dymond and Maggie Harrington, Calli and Mandy could not have found the success that they did without those girls. We're awful grateful for them as well."
Calli was beyond thankful for the honor and even more grateful to share the moment with Mandy.
"It was super sweet. We wouldn't be a team without her," Calli said. "She has been rock-solid for so long, and we've been so close for so many years. We grew up together in church and in school. It was super sweet to finish this chapter of our life together."
Now Calli prepares to turn the page. She'll head off to Columbia International to continue her career next year, but she knows that softball will never be the same after leaving Clarendon Hall.
"In my head, this last game here was definitely really difficult because I know it'll never be the same. Playing this sport that I love probably won't be the same again because it was so special with the group that we had," she said. "It definitely does make it easier that I hopefully, Lord willing, get to pitch again in the fall, so I'm super excited to continue with the opportunities that I've been given."