CHERRY TWP — On the way home from a road softball game in 2015, Moniteau's bus pulled into the truck stop in Emlenton.

Eventual coach Lennie Claypoole — who had daughters playing at the time — picked up a little trinket while browsing through the shop.

“I saw a little (plastic) Indian head and thought it'd be a cute thing to put in our dugout,” Claypoole said. “If it got lost in there one day or left behind, no big deal.”

Moniteau's nickname is the Warriors.

And Claypoole had no idea he started a tradition that day that remains very much alive.”

Sara Hull, a sophomore on that 2015 Moniteau team, took the trinket and glued it to the top of a walking stick. The handle of the stick is red and black, the school colors.

“I just wanted to have some fun with it,” Hull said. “We decided to stick it in the ground by our dugout, sort of as our symbol. We call it Switch.

“I love that it's still going on.”

The Warriors reached the state championship game the following spring — and Switch was part of the program to stay.

It got its name from Hull taking the stick to school on game days. Whenever she — or another player — would hand it to a teammate in the hall to take it into another class, the player said “Switch.”

And the name stuck.

“The bottom of that stick is pointed, since it is a walking stick, so I had to heavily tape it so it wouldn't be considered a weapon being brought into the school,” Hull recalled. “Whatever it took, whatever I had to do, I was gonna do. It was coming with me.”

Hull is now a senior first baseman at Indiana (Pa.) University. When her senior season ended at Moniteau, she passed the stick on to then-sophomore Maddie Clark.

“I took such good care of that thing,” Hull recalled. “I took it home every day, always knew where it was. I wanted to make sure things would stay that way.

“I could see how seriously Maddie took the game. I knew she wouldn't treat this lightly.”

She didn't.

Now a sophomore infielder-outfielder at Grove City College, Clark continued the tradition.

“I kept it in my car, made sure I took it to away games on the bus,” Clark said. “I was honored to be picked to take care of it.

“Switch is a big deal to our team. It was a big responsibility.”

When Clark was a senior, she got with her senior teammates at the end of the season and picked then-sophomore, now senior second baseman Taylor Schultz to take over.

“They chose me because they thought I was someone who played hard and took the game seriously,” Schultz said. “Absolutely, I'm proud of that. It means a lot being the one picked to carry it on.

“I keep it in my room. If I'm not sure I'll be home before our game, I make sure it's in the car. Switch is never left behind.”

Never. Ever.

“It's an amazing thing,” Claypoole said. “We've forgotten batting tees, catcher's equipment, other things before going to a field ... never Switch. Not even once.

“Those girls know where that stick is at all times.”

Current Warriors coach Bob Rottman has no problem with the stick being stuck in the ground at every Moniteau game, home and away.

“It's become a tradition, being passed on from team to team,” Rottman said. “When you have a winning program, historically, that's a good thing.

“The kids like it. They take it seriously and rally around it.”

The postseason softball banquet is when seniors determine which sophomore will be entrusted with the care of Switch for the next two years.

“I'll get with the other seniors and we'll make that decision,” Schultz said. “Whoever gets it, keeps it for the entire off-season.

“Switch has become part of our school, in a way. The teachers like it. Everybody knows what it's about. It means we're together.”

Hull has since purchased her own version of Switch.

While at a truck stop in New York, she browsed the shop and found the same Indian head trinket.

“I bought it and put it with all of my high school stuff at home,” she said. “It will always remind me of those high school memories.”