Members of a local girls’ softball team experienced the kindness of small-town strangers earlier this week after an auto accident near Decatur, Ill.

Members of the Lawrence Phenix,an elite 16-and-under team, traveled to Illinois to compete in a national softball tournament. All of the hotel rooms in Decatur were full, so the team had to stay about 40 miles away in Springfield.

On the way to a game Wednesday morning, Basehor resident Jim Flowers, father of team member Chelsea Flowers, was driving a rented van containing his daughter, team member Amanda Hughes, of Basehor, and some of their family members.

Jim Flowers took a wrong turn, pulled out a map and studied it, then tried a shortcut through the small town of Warrensburg. As the van neared the center of town, an elderly woman pulled her car out in front of it, Flowers said.

“There was no time to do anything, so we hit her,” he said.

Chelsea’s knee was bruised and the van was totaled. No one had serious injuries, but there was a problem. The girls had no way to get to the game, which started in about a half-hour. Without them the team had only eight players.

As emergency crews worked the scene of the wreck, a woman who passed by offered to drive Amanda and her sister to the game.

She wasn’t the only helpful local. A farmer, Mike Timmons, came by and offered to loan his van to Jim Flowers, who had stayed at the scene after Chelsea’s mother rode with her in an ambulance to a hospital.

Flowers said he used the van to catch up with his daughter at the hospital and to run other errands, then returned it later in the day.

“He would not take one cent,” Flowers said.

The woman who gave Amanda a ride came to one of the team’s games the following day, and players were ready with a thank-you card and flowers. A local TV station caught wind of the event and sent a news crew.

“We were the media darlings for the day in Decatur,” coach Ted Juneau said.

Jim Flowers said he was amazed at the friendliness of the locals.

“They tell me it’s good crappie fishing down here,” he said. “I know when I go looking for a good out-of-state place to go crappie fishing, this is where I’m coming. They treated us like family.”

The team played two rounds in the winner’s bracket, Juneau said, but was eliminated from the tournament Friday. Flowers said he expected the team to finish in the top half of roughly 80 teams.

He said his daughter had to miss much of the tournament because of her knee injury, but she was able to play Friday.