Story By: Bailey Ketcham
This spring season has been everything but boring for the Missouri Western softball team, as they have fought through a range of adversities thrown their way.
The team chemistry and ability to never give up during their games has moved them to the top of the MIAA conference, and on their way to reaching their goal of a national championship.
Head coach Jen Bagley-Trotter has been coaching Missouri Western softball for the past 15 years, and received her 500th win this season with a record of 35-11 overall. Even though the team has been soaring through their season, it has been anything but easy for the Griffons.
Throughout the season, the team has had to deal with a fairly large amount of obstacles. One of them being only having two pitchers, seniors Janie Smith and Shyanne Saladino. Saladino has also been playing with a stress fracture in her wrist and has made the sacrifice to pitch in pain through the whole season to keep the team at the top.
“One of our big accomplishments this season is going 5-1 at our home tournament with both of our pitchers having the flu against huge regional opponents,” Trotter said. “It could have been really detrimental for how important those games were, and for those two kids to gut up and play sick and play their best, but the team rallied around them, and said if they’re going to be sick, then we are going to have to play some sick defense.”
This spring has been full of accomplishments for the team including a 1-0 win against No. 1 Pitt State that lasted 10 innings and bumped the Griffons into first place. The team has also had two games in the same week where they had back-to-back-to-back homeruns from the same three girls, Katie Klosterman, Kailey Green and Taylor Hamilton.
“People have been starting to call us the ‘Smash Sisters’ because of our back-to-back-to-back homeruns in the game against northwest to tie it up and win, and for our win against Fort Hays State,” Klosterman said.
According to Trotter, the softball program has been the same for a lot of years with good team chemistry, but the difference with this team is their fight through the last out and rallying behind each other to overcome adversity and embrace every game and every inning.
“Our team chemistry is one of the best it’s been out of the four years I’ve been here,” Smith said. “Our ability to fight back, the past years no team has been able to come back and be successful like we’ve been throughout the season.”
The team’s goal is to make it out of the regional tournament for the first time in history, and then work towards a national championship. Not only does being No. 1 in the conference put a lot of pressure on the girls, but it also puts a target on their back, because they’re the team that everyone wants to beat, which makes no room for mistakes.
“The thing people overlook is that softball is a sport of adversity, because you play in all sorts of temperatures, cold and hot,” Trotter said. “ You may play at a field that has terrible surfaces, whether it’s dirt or turf, or you may be playing with the sun in your face or not, but the team that can deal with that the best is the team that’s going to win, and we’ve done a really good job this year at embracing and beating whatever adversity it is and rallying behind it, and that’s why we are successful.”