Recording winning seasons has never been a problem for the Garfield G-Men softball team but making deep runs has. The G-Men will try and change their fortune this season by bringing back a vast amount of experience with seven returning lettermen.
“I am really looking for that cohesion and consistency,” said Coach Tina Faulhaber. “Our pitchers are back so I am looking for confidence in them, and hoping our defense will grow and improve from last year. We have a lot of our tools back so I am looking for that to gel and mesh and improve.”
After having another strong season last year, the G-Men will return six starters, including senior pitchers Lizzy Moore and junior Juliana Genovese. Southpaw sophomore Annie Rado will join the rotation as the third pitcher, giving Garfield plenty of pitching depth.
“It is big especially with the way our schedule is so unpredictable especially with some days when you have six games back-to-back-to-back,” noted the 15th-year coach. “It is big you can have someone to share the workload, but it is also nice because they are very different pitchers.”
In addition to having pitching depth, Garfield also returns some talented hitters such Moore, who carries a big bat on her shoulder as well as a reliable arm, senior third baseman Maddy Wilson, junior catcher Kolby Fresch and Genovese.
Wilson served as the G-Men’s clean-up hitter last year and will be counted on again to provide some power.
Faulhaber said the G-Men did a good job hitting for extra bases last season but lacked home run power, with most of them coming on inside-the-park home runs but hopes that Garfield can unlock some more power this year.
She acknowledged that the G-Men also will also try and be a faster team this season and look to take the extra base.
“Some of the freshman bring some speed if they are not ready with other skills,” Faulhaber added. “At least with traveling the bases, they are pretty fast and have done some running in the offseason or have just grown into their body and have picked up some speed a little bit from last year. We try to work on it more and more from every year to get girls running with their feet with a purpose.
Although Garfield returns a lot of experience, the roster is filled with only four seniors and is founded on a large underclassmen group consisting of 12 freshmen, who will split time between the junior varsity and varsity levels.
The four seniors leading the way will be Moore, Wilson, second baseman Gabriel Groves and Mikayla Swignoski, who returns to varsity action for the first time since her freshman season.
“It is nice to have four different people that have been there,” said Faulhaber. “Even with Mikayla, she has seen it and it has been a minute but she has seen it so for them to give advice and mentor for the team is pretty impressive.”
Faulhaber added it was a nice change of pace to have a large showing from the underclassmen since Garfield did not have enough players to field a junior varsity team last year. She acknowledged that the G-Men have struggled to consistently field a junior varsity squad over the last several years but having one of the largest freshmen classes in recent memory is a nice step to building a new foundation.
Although most of the freshmen will spend time on the junior varsity team at the beginning of the season, Faulhaber said she could foresee several freshmen being valuable contributors during the year.
“A lot of them have skills and potential to play not only this year but upcoming years to play at the varsity level,” she added. “It also gives ones that are a little bit weaker with the talent and a little bit raw right now to get some playing time and maybe catch up with the rest of them.”
Garfield will continue to adjust competing in the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Grey Tier, which also fields some of the top teams in Division III such as Champion, Brookfield, LaBrae and Crestview.
“We are going to face some really good pitching and some very elite hitters too,” Faulhaber noted. “It is not just all pitching. A lot of the teams go to the plate ready to hit big and ready to advance their team, so it is quite the challenge with that kind of atmosphere in that kind of league.”
Garfield will begin its season when it takes on MVAC Grey Tier foe Campbell Memorial on the road on March 25 at 5 p.m.
