Liz Winslow has spent most of her softball life with the Scarborough High program. Now she’ll be getting her chance to lead it.

Winslow, a standout player and longtime assistant under iconic coach Tom Griffin, will take over as Scarborough’s head coach after Griffin retired in June following eight state championships and nearly 500 wins.

Winslow, 40, starred as a pitcher for the Red Storm before graduating in 2000 and going on to a career as a first baseman at the University of Delaware. She came back to Scarborough as the junior varsity coach in 2007, and then became a volunteer assistant for Griffin and the varsity in 2010.

Now she’ll get to run a program she helped build. The Scarborough school board approved her hiring Thursday.

“I’m so excited to get back to it,” said Winslow, who works as a clinical laboratory scientist in the blood bank at Maine Medical Center. “I love these kids. They make my days brighter, they make it better. … I’m looking forward to continuing this. We’ve had a successful program for a long, long time now, and I just want to continue it.”

Athletic Director Mike LeGage credited Winslow’s “strong conviction and passion” for the sport and the team.

“She’s got some good ideas, and I think she’ll find her own way of doing it,” he said. “She had a singular focus, and that was to be the varsity head coach at Scarborough. … It’s certainly a bonus to have someone from inside the system that knows the routine, that can easily get into the routine.”

Griffin, who finished his run at Scarborough with 498 wins, said the school picked the right person for the job.

“I always had it in my head all these years, this is the person that I wanted to take over the program,” he said. “A lot of times, schools were inquiring about her availability and approaching her about coaching their teams. She could have had any varsity position in this area. … But she’s been loyal to Scarborough High School.”

Griffin remembers when he first met Winslow. He was chatting by the fence with assistant Charlie Andreson after a practice when he heard the smack of a bat and saw a ball hit off the fence.

There was a Little League practice going on. Winslow, all of 9 years old, had clubbed the hit.

“That was my first introduction to Liz,” Griffin said.

It was just the beginning. As a freshman pitcher, Winslow helped lead Scarborough to its first state title in Class B in 1997. In her first year back on the coaching staff, Scarborough won its second title, and its first in Class A. When she joined the varsity team in 2010, she helped the Red Storm win five of the next 10 Class A state championships.

Winslow’s specialty was working with pitchers and hitters. But Griffin made sure both she and Andreson worked in all areas.

“I’ve always treated my assistant coaches as co-coaches,” Griffin said. “I delegated responsibility and I trusted what they were doing, and gave them full responsibility to take care of parts of the program. … It’s not something she’s unfamiliar with, as far as taking responsibility.”

Winslow knows there’s pressure, but she’s also confident in her ability to rise to it.

“I’m following the best coach that’s coached in the state. I’d be crazy not to think I have something to live up to,” she said. “But I’ve always been pretty good at handling pressure.”

Winslow said her Scarborough teams won’t beat themselves.

“Fundamentals, period. That’s what we’re going to focus on. Solid defense, that’s what wins in the end,” she said. “We’ve got kids that can hit. We’ve got a really solid core of power and some good speed coming back.”

Winslow, who used to work with Griffin with elementary and middle school pitchers every Sunday from October to March, said maintaining the program will be another point of emphasis.

“I want to see numbers go up. … I want kids coming out and participating,” she said. “I want them to learn it, I want them to understand the game. I’m not the type of coach who’s going to be making decisions for them. I want them to learn from that experience, learn how to play, learn from their mistakes and grow from that.”

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