This year’s Trenton Lady Bulldog softball team, the latest installment in one of the powerhouse programs in the area over the past 15 years, looks to be as strong as ever coming into the 2018 season, although the squad, led by five senior standouts, is looking to put the disappointment of a district championship loss to rival Penney from ten months ago in their rear-view mirror as practice opened at mid-morning on Monday at Mark Griffin Memorial Field at Trenton High School.
The Lady Bulldogs combination of talent and depth will include senior ace right-hander Ainsley Tolson, and plenty of offensive punch supplied by hard-hitting seniors Salem Croy, Taylor Richman, and Mykah Hurley. Fellow senior Sidney Lynch, working through the final stages of a comeback from a summer knee injury, could miss a couple of weeks early this season, but Coach John Cowling is confident in Lynch’s ability to be ready for the season’s biggest games. The return of Richman, who was scalding the softball at the time of a season-ending broken leg suffered in her junior season, will make Trenton’s offense even more potent in 2018, as will the return of Maci Moore, arguably the state’s top Class 2 freshman hitting talent in 2017. Trenton, despite the disappointing finish in 2017, did boast three first-team all-state selections from the campaign, all returning this season, in Tolson, Croy, and Moore.
Numbers are slightly improved for the Lady Bulldogs in 2017, but with the departure of the senior group now approaching soon, Coach Cowling noted the importance of developing a freshman group that will be the program’s deepest, in terms of numbers, this season:
The Lady Bulldogs, as they did a year ago, will test themselves early in the new season, opening with a pair of games on Friday, August 24th and another pair on Saturday, August 25th at the ultra-tough Cameron Invitational Tournament:
Trenton’s Grand River Conference opener should also prove to be one of the season’s biggest challenges, with tradition-rich Putnam County visiting THS on Tuesday, August 28th at 5:30 PM.
