By Louis Fernandez, WRAL Sports

Teams normally exchange lineup cards before a softball game, but this evening North Johnston High School and Spring Creek High School are taking the time to trade something else, something different.

A sticker.

It’s in honor of a player, a part of the softball family in eastern North Carolina.

“It’s just been really like tight-knit. Everybody is like family, especially when you’re playing this sport,” Spring Creek senior Jasmine Valentine said.

Over the course of their careers, softball players will often play for multiple teams – a high school team and a travel team, for example. Each person meets a lot of different players, a lot of different families. It’s a web of relationships as complex as the webbing on a softball glove. It made the news out of Harnett County all the more devastating in February.

Aubrey Horne, a 14-year-old at Triton High School died by suicide. She was the youngest of four sisters, who all played softball growing up. Her father, David Horne, coached as well. The whole family has been a staple of this softball community.

David said Aubrey was raised on the diamond.

“They used to call her and the other little kids that used to run around, the Sandbox Kids, is what they’d call them, because they’d come up to you and they’d be so dirty, so muddy,” Horne said behind the dugout on the third base side as the North Johnston and Spring Creek game played on.

“It’s really hard to be honest with you, me and my wife, we just take it day by day, especially (with Aubrey) being the baby.”

Horne says Aubrey experienced mental health related problems for the past few years. That has become more common in young people according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. In a recent study, the CDC says the suicide rate in people between the ages of 10 to 24 increased by 62% from 2007 to 2021.

“We just want to try to help kids with that, help parents not have to deal with what we’re having to deal with right now,” Horne said.

In the months since her death, the Horne family has tried their best to make change, bringing awareness for suicide prevention,for mental health services, especially involving young people, and to remove any kind of stigma around depression and anxiety.

“Since all of this has happened with my daughter, I’ve started to experience some things that I haven’t experienced before and even as an adult it’s scary,” Horne said. “Sometimes it’s uncontrollable, so unless you deal with it, you don’t really know what a person is dealing with.”

A local softball league, SE Top Gun Softball, held a tournament in Aubrey’s name in March and plans to continue the tradition each year. The Horne family is creating the Aubrey Genesis Foundation, with hopes of one day opening up a center in Dunn for those in need to spend time, similar to a YMCA.

That brings us back to softball and the stickers. They’re meant to raise money for the family and spread awareness for suicide prevention. Rhonda Scott, a North Johnston mom, helped to organize the moment.

“We’ve just got a great, knit ball community, whether it’s North Johnston High School or Spring Creek High School,” Scott said.

“It’s family, just as simple as that, it’s really family,” Horne said.

The players getting the stickers for North Johnston immediately put them on the side of their helmets. It’s the Horne family’s hope that they’ll serve as a reminder for those in need.

“You never know what’s going on with somebody,” Valentine said. “Just check on the people you love, enjoy this game and the time that we have here.”

After all, that’s what family’s for.

“That’s what we have left, and that’s (why) I want to keep her name alive, her passion alive,” Horne said.

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If you’re having suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis, call or text 988 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.

Veterans can press “1” after dialing 988 to connect directly to the Veterans Crisis Lifeline. For texts, veterans should continue to text the Veterans Crisis Lifeline short code: 838255.

Source: wralsportsfan.com