Loyal-Greenwood should be competitive in first co-op year
Loyal-Greenwood head softball coach Heidi Ashbeck knows who her main pitcher and catcher will be and who will man the corner infield spots, but after that, there are still a lot of question marks as the team begins to take the field. The team’s first game was Tuesday at Fall Creek, and it was then that Ashbeck was going to start to see who will eventually fill her outfield and middle infield spots.
Uncertainty has been par for the course this spring. The split Loyal/Greenwood team is taking the field together just a few months after the two schools decided to co-op for this spring. Greenwood has only eight players out for the sport and would not have been able to field a team of its own, while 19 girls from Loyal are on the team. That’s more than expected, but it’s a positive development as the team can field a full junior varsity squad to get some younger players on the field.
Ashbeck said when the two schools measured interest in softball for this spring, they did not see more than two dozen players coming out.
“That is definitely more than we expected,” Ashbeck said. “We have a lot more underclassmen than we anticipated. Coaching-wise, it’s nice to have all the girls.”
Assisting Ashbeck this spring are Greg Brock (Loyal’s former head baseball coach), Doug Schlough and Alyssa Suda. Volunteer assistants are Cindy Rasmussen and Perry Oestreich.
As if putting together a team after the cancellation of the 2020 spring season wasn’t difficult enough, Ashbeck said it’s been tricky getting everything organized in the first year of a co-op program.
“It’s been challenging, just the coordination of everything and getting back and forth,” Ashbeck said. “We’re just trying to work out the quirks this year.”
Evaluating a group of players that hasn’t been on the field in two years is also not the easiest task. Ashbeck has just four seniors, who were sophomores when they last played. The rest of the varsity team members, including five juniors, three sophomores, and two freshmen, have hardly any playing time behind them.
The four seniors will give the team a foundation on which to build. Katlyn Lindner will be counted upon from the pitching rubber, as she already has experience there from her freshmen and sophomore seasons. Junior Zaida Brock will be the catcher.
Senior Gracie North will man first base and senior Kayla Bremmer will be at third base, giving the infield experience at the corners. North played third base for Greenwood as a sophomore and Bremmer was a starter in Loyal.
The rest of the positions are up for grabs among a number of players. Ashbeck knows she has the players to start, but has not yet determined whose strengths work best in which positions.
Players who are in the mix for the middle infield spots and the three outfi eld positions are junior Mesa Rasmussen, sophomore Aspen Hagen, junior Alyssa Clintsman, junior Emma Schlough, senior Jade Springer, junior Mckenna Schley and sophomore Anna Lindner. The remaining four players on the varsity roster -- sophomores Morgan Raese and Delaney Kirchner and freshmen Danielle Strey and Mya Rueth -- will split time between the varsity and JV teams. While Katlyn Lindner is expected to get most of the pitching innings, Ashbeck is working with several players as backups, including Schlough, Brock, Clintsman and Anna Lindner. That will give the team some depth for this year, as well as developing pitching for next spring.
As for the defense behind those pitchers, it’s a work in progress. With about half the practice time so far confined to a gym, Ashbeck has not been able to fully evaluate everyone yet. Some game action will help that situation.
“We are looking better every day for fielding,” the coach said. “We are not sure on positions yet for outfi eld. We might have to make some adjustments.”
Ashbeck thinks the team’s hitting will be its strength. The defense should come around when players settle into the positions to which they’re best suited.
All in all, Ashbeck thinks Loyal-Greenwood will be very competitive in the Eastern Cloverbelt Conference.
“All around, we have a very good team for offense and defense,” she said. Our goal is to win conference.”
Neillsville will likely be the toughest team to get past, Ashbeck said, but others should be competitive, as well.
“I think Neillsville is going to be tough to beat. Otherwise the whole conference will be tough,” she said.
With Greenwood and Loyal now combined, and Granton having dropped the sport a few years ago, the ECC is now down to seven teams, which will all play each other twice.
Others in the field are Colby, Gilman, Marshfield Columbus, Owen-Withee and Spencer.
After the conference season, Loyal-Greenwood will jump up from Division 5 to Division 3 for the WIAA tournament, because of the combined enrollment of the two schools.
DEAN LESAR/STAFF PHOTO
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
After hearing that the Loyal and Greenwood softball programs had combined for the 2021 spring season, local residents Denny and Judy Olson stepped forward to pay for the uniform tops for the co-op team. The Olsons have ties to both communities, and wanted to do something to help the merger.
