Last season it took a while for the Garfield G-Men softball team to hit its stride, but things came together at the end of the season and the G-Men will attempt to carry that momentum into this season, returning nine starters in its quest to reach the top of the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Grey Tier.
“It is good to hopefully see our hard work paying off to shake the rust off and jump right in,” said Coach Tina Faulhaber. “It is good to have some success right at the gate and then you can build even more and more so we are all very excited with how far we can go and how much we can improve and how hard we can play.”
Although the G-Men experienced growing pains last year with a young roster, Faulhaber said that the team appeared to hit its stride, riding a six-game winning streak into the playoffs.
Having graduated only two players from last year’s team, Faulhaber added that the team has high hopes of hitting the ground running once the season starts.
Garfield is scheduled to depart the MVAC Grey Tier after the end of the 2027 season to join the Greater Portage Athletic Conference. Faulhaber said that her squad wants to leave its current league on a high note by finally capturing an MVAC Grey Tier banner. She acknowledged that the competition remains as stiff as ever with the usual suspects as strong as ever in Champion, LaBrae and Southeast.
“The competition is intense on both sides of it,” she noted. “There are so many good teams. Elite pitchers are one thing; a lot of the teams on both the Scarlet and Grey tier have those elite pitchers that can take over a game by themselves, but it is also stacked with so many hitters. It seems like there are quite a few teams that have all of the components.”
For the G-Men, it starts on the mound as sophomore right-hander Olivia Bailey and senior southpaw Annie Rado will take the ball in the circle as the team’s starting rotation.
As a freshman, Bailey hurled 28.0 innings while recording 2.00 ERA, striking out 20 and walking only six batters in six games while Rado pitched only five innings last year, amassing a 1.40 ERA while striking out two and issuing five walks.
“Olivia did a lot more pitching last year than Annie did, she was in the rotation with Juliana Genovese so she was more in the rotation, but Annie has been working hard and they work well together,” Faulhaber said.
According to Faulhaber, the G-Men will lean heavily on their defense to anchor the team to a quick start, with the outfield comprised of senior center fielder Kaelyn Tasker with juniors Charlee Hill and Madi Seiler occupying the corner outfield spots.
Tasker returns after hitting .259, driving in 4 runs and adding one double to her batting line over 11 games last year and provided reliable defense in the outfield.
“Kaelyn is our center fielder, and she is the quarterback out there,” Faulhaber said.
Manning the backstop for Garfield will be sophomores Emily Knerem and Diamond Dyson.
Knerem hit .600, including slugging one home run and driving in three runs over four games while Dyson tallied a .343 batting average, with 12 RBIs and recording five doubles and one home run in 11 games last year.
“Emily and Diamond are both equally solid behind the plate, they have great arms and are not afraid to throw and are great at calling a game, so they ground us,” Faulhaber said.
Sophomore middle infielder Brooke Hrabak will begin the season as the team’s leadoff hitter, following a freshman campaign where she hit .312, recorded 10 RBIs and tallied four doubles and one triple across 12 games last season.
“She is fast,” Faulhaber said of the G-Men’s sophomore leadoff hitter. “She can bunt, she can swing, she can hit for power and she can slap it, so she is one of our key bats.”
Faulhaber said that Garfield’s power bats will be Dyson and Hill, who slashed .333, driving home 5 RBIs and one double in 11 games last year.
In the wake of graduating leading power bat Kolby Fresch, Faulhaber said that Dyson and Hill return after being in the top three in terms of power numbers for the G-Men in 2025.
After opening the season with a road duel against Cardinal on Tuesday night, Garfield’s will host Jackson-Milton for its home opener on Friday at 5 p.m. and will then welcome Portage County rival Mogadore to Garrettsville on Saturday at 11 a.m.
