Tri-County Area prep softball teams with early wins
Rarely has a prep sports team lose so much and bring back so much more.
Fall Creek High School's softball team saw seven letterwinners depart from last season's Western Clovernelt and regional-winning and sectional runner-up, 27-3 squad in Jenna Fitch - P
Kennedy Gruhlke - 1B/C; Lexi Gustafson - IF/OF; Karly Harriman - IF; Beki Hutchison - OF; Olivia Kinderman - OF and Riley Nicks - OF.
Yet the Crickets return 11 letterwinners (only three of them seniors) again hoping to break through and reach the state tournament they've been denied for the past three seasons. So far so good for FC as they have a 7-1 record, their only loss so far to big Chicago-suburban school Libertyville, Ill. during their spring break trip in Tennessee. Fall Creek has swept both big Eau Claire schools Memorial and North and last week they edged Arcadia 6-5 on Tuesday, April 9; blanked Stanley-Boyd 10-0 on Thursday, April 11 and beat Altoona 10-7 on Friday, April 12. They face a big intra-league test on Tuesday, April 16 when they host Chippewa Falls McDonell with the first pitch at 5 p.m., weather-permitting. Also next week they take-on two-time defending regional champ Osseo-Fairchild at home as well.
Returning letterwinners for FC include junior Larissa Johnson - OF/IF, senior Averie Barka - 2B; junior Gracie Herrem - P/IF; junior Addison Haynes - IF/P; senior Elena Raffesberger - OF; junior Kennedy Tumm - 3B, junior Kendyl Asmussen - OF, junior Emma Westrate - C, senior Sophie Johnson - SS/P, junior Aubrey Ohman - C/1B and sophomore Delaney Lewandowski - IF/P. Johnson and Tumm were both first team, All-WCC while Westrate and Barka both received honorable mention.
"We are returning several experienced players who have worked hard in the off-season to prepare for this season," head coach Brad Ceranski said. "We will look to build on last year's success and continue to improve throughout the season."
Three key, all-conference players from those regional title teams for O-F: Eleice Dahl, Madi Loonstra and Katie Skoug, have all graduated and the Thunder also have a new head coach in Justin Johnson. O-F is 1-4 overall so far, their lone win against Neillsville. Last week the Thunder were blanked 10-0 at Thorp on Friday, April 12. They lost at Marshfield Columbus 14-2 on Tuesday, April 9. The Thunder also lost Rae Prudlick, Taylor Gunderson and Trinituy Knudtson as well. Back for the Thunder are letterwinners Halle Colby, Chloe Gunderson and Addison Koxlien.
"We have three multi-year starters back and our numbers are up from last year," Johnson said. "But we have to gain a lot of experience and fast because we've started the season with zero varsity innings pitched on the team, as well as zero varsity innings at catcher."
Also very young is Augusta. The Beavers finished at .500 last season led by All-Dairyland Conference players Sam Wincse, and Kennedy Korger and Emma Lee along with Addison Engstrom and Mersaydez Wolfe. The Beavers also lost junior Parker Waugh for this season as she is recovering from ankle surgery and senior Nevaeh Bergman to a medical issue. Their own returning letterwinners are starters Oliva Meyer and Rachel West and Nyaeli Schloneger, McKenzie Maciosek, and Alexa Sanchez Herrick. Thus, AHS has struggled at the start of the 2024 season. Last week they lost at home to Cochrane-Fountain Citty 13-2 on Tuesday, April 9 and Melrose-Mindoro 9-2 on Thursday, April 11 for an 0-4 start for new head coach Jimi Zawacki.
"We graduated a really good senior class (three of whom were all-conference). That class included a pitcher (Sam Winsce) who struck out 531 hitters in her career," Zawacki said. "We have to find a way to replace all of that. But I think one strength is that we are young and excited about the season. We have a new coaching staff and the energy has been pretty high. Our young girls have gotten a lot of varsity time this year in other sports, so I think that will help them this spring. Olivia Meyer and Rachel West will have to be a spark for our team and help get this young team ready to play some ball.
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Like Osseo-Fairchild, AHS has to gain experience quickly in order to be competitive.
"We have to learn quickly and adjust on the fly," Zawacki said. "Our goal is to be playing our best ball heading into May. We will have to build confidence in our freshman pitchers. It is easy to look at the young team and think about the future, but our focus is on this spring. We have two seniors that are focused on this year and helping get the young girls ready for the season."
After a slow start, Eleva-Strum won a pair of games last week to even its record at 2-2 overall, 1-2 in the Dairyland Large Division (The DC moved to a basketball-like division between large and small schools for softball). After losing at Melrose-Mindoro 9-2 to start the week, Tuesday, April 9, the Cardinals topped Whitehall 8-2 on Friday, April 12 and beat Durand-Arkansaw 10-6 Saturday at Durand's Tarrant Park. The Cards led 6-4 after four innings and scored four runs to break the game open benefitting from 10 Panther errors while getting timely hits from freshman Maddea Brown, including a double and RBI, plus a perfect RBI-single bunt laid down by junior Elizabeth Nordstrorm. They also got the key strikeouts they needed from winning pitcher sophomore Ruby Bartholomew (who also singled) in the final two innings, especially when D-A scored twice in their last at bats. Bartholomew was the Cards' lone all-conference player last season and is one of the top returning pitchers in the DC for the 2024 season.
The Cards are still very young, graduating just two seniors last season in Maddie Bertrang and Cora Gehrke. They were only 4-16 overall but played competitively throughout last season and won their first regional tournament contest in many years. The only other senior on the team is outfielder Emma Brown. E-S has 10 juniors on its varsity roster, two sophomores and three freshmen.
