As Randy Law handed over the reins to the field that bears his name, it finally started to sink in.

His Saks Lady Wildcats softball team — which he had coached the past four seasons with his daughter, Cara, lighting up hitters across the state — was eliminated, without a movie script ending.

It was May 15, and Saks was a loss away from elimination in the state tournament in Montgomery. But a win would have put them closer to an elusive state title.

Cara did her part, as folks who know softball around here know her to do. The Star's 2009 Class 4A-6A Calhoun County Softball Player of the Year shut down Central Florence for most of seven innings, and the No. 3 Lady Wildcats held a 3-0 lead.

But things unraveled, Cara was removed for a reliever and put at third base, and Saks eventually lost 5-3 in 13 innings.

For Cara — whose stellar Saks career ended not on the mound, where she made her name, but at third — the finality of it all sank in immediately, watching Central Florence celebrate while she and the rest of the Lady Wildcats watched from the dugout.

Cara went out with an impressive season — a 30-9-1 record with 439 strikeouts, 17 walks and a 0.99 ERA.

She'll play again, too. She signed with Wallace State in Hanceville as a pitcher and is playing summer ball now.

But for her father, this was it. Randy, the Star's 2009 Class 4A-6A Coach of the Year, is retiring after 16 total years coaching Saks softball — 12 years of slow-pitch, followed by a 7-year hiatus, then a four-year span which Cara played.

It took a week after that final loss in the tournament, as the coach was cleaning Randy Law Field — his field — one last time and giving the keys to new coach Mike Tucker for him to fully realize.

It was all over. He was Saks' coach no more.

"That was a tough day," he said. "It really was."

There was a time when he didn't even want the job again.

After seven years away from coaching, then-Saks principal Larry Skinner approached Randy about returning to coach softball.

At the time, he just wanted to be a teacher and a father. His son Chris — in his day a good first baseman for Saks — was playing college baseball, and he wanted more time to watch him.

But he reluctantly accepted. Immediate success, plus the fact his daughter was on the team, made him realize it was the right move.

"Right after we won the county tournament that year, I told them I didn't regret it," he said.

Even now, Randy Law says he doesn't regret taking the job again. Rare is the opportunity that a father can coach his all-star daughter.

"It was a lot of fun," Randy said. "Coaching your kid is something special, and 99.9 percent of the time, it was good."

That other 0.1 percent? Not quite as fun. Randy and Cara say there were a couple of contentious moments, especially early on.

"Sometimes we wouldn't see eye-to-eye," Randy said. "We're just both really competitive. I think that's what made her as good as she is. She didn't mind working extra hard."

For Cara, it was just "weird" having her father there, coaching and parenting at the same time.

"Ninth grade was the hardest year," she said. "It just took some adjusting."

But she also appreciates what it meant to them to share in Saks' success together.

"I knew he wasn't going to miss a game for anything, because he couldn't," she said. "I liked looking over in the dugout and seeing him there. I couldn't ask for a better coach or father."

Father and daughter take solace in the fact they did it together. That while they didn't exactly go out on top, they went out together.

There was still plenty of on-field success along the way, including the 2009 Calhoun County tournament, which the Lady Wildcats won by defeating archrival Alexandria.

But softball at Saks, no matter how recent, is now in the past for each of them.

For Cara, it's something her father told her as a seventh-grader, two years before he would be her coach, which sticks out the most.

Before this past season, the 2004 Lady Wildcats were the most recent to reach Lagoon Park in Montgomery to play for a state title. Randy told his daughter then that it wouldn't be the last.

"He put his arm over my shoulder and said, 'Make sure you're here before you graduate,'" she said.

She got there, and they each recalled that moment from five years ago right after the loss to Central-Florence.

"In the dugout at Lagoon Park, he told me he was proud of me," she said.

In 2010, the scene at Randy Law Field will be different. The team's coach and star pitcher from a championship-caliber team will be gone.

But one thing will remain. Randy Law will be there, just in the bleachers, cheering on the Lady Wildcats.

"I told coach Tucker that if he heard someone cheering louder than anyone else, it was going to be me," he said.

And Cara will still have her father there when she's pitching in college.

"I know he wouldn't miss a game," she said. "It's going to be different. He'll still be yelling at me, just not from the dugout."