Tigers to open season at Southeast

The Fremont High softball team has seven returning starters but the starting roster is far from set in stone.

Competition so far has impressed second-year co-head coaches Michael Schleicher and Ryan Fittje enough that they have held off on naming starters until the season opener Thursday at Lincoln Southeast.

“Thus far the competition has been excellent for the starting positions,” said Schleicher. “We really feel like we’ve got some girls that we can put in a variety of places this week and we’ll probably learn quite a bit after Thursday night.”

“We aren’t naming any starters because we want to keep it open for competition,” Fittje added. “We’re going to try some different things and see what works best is what we told the team.”

Of the seven returning starters, three are starting pitchers.

Senior Annie Hoesing and juniors Vicki Nielsen and Jessye Johnson all have experience on the mound.

“We do have a lot of experience at that position and hoping for a little bit more consistency,” said Fittje.

Hoesing earned all-conference honors last season and Nielsen was honorable mention.

“I like to be in control on the mound and show my team I can be a leader,” said Hoesing. “I think I can do that and will certainly try.”

Also earning honorable mention as a sophomore was infielder/outfielder Jessica Spalding.

Returning starters are seniors Hoesing, Marissa Niday and Krista Wearden and juniors Nielsen, Spalding, Johnson and Mandi Vukonich. Senior Shelby Miller is a returning letterwinner.

Other players in the mix are sophomore Jena Hallstrom, junior Alexa Johnson and seniors Ashley Dahlhauser, Lakken Winters and Tifanie Booze.

It has been a long road for this group of upperclassmen.

“A lot of the juniors and seniors have been playing together since 10-and-under softball,” said Hoesing. “I’m excited to show everyone our team chemistry and what we can do.”

That long history of playing together will be a plus, Schleicher said.

“Experience can be something that we can lean on; we had a nice run to the end of the season last year and it is the second year for Ryan and I doing this so the girls have a better feel of how we like the games to go and how we’ll call the games,” he said.

Niday is a varsity veteran, holding down the starting center field spot for the past two years.

“We’re pretty experienced,” said Niday. “We’ll be a balanced team this year with people who can play defense and people who can hit the ball.”

Schleicher and Fittje, who equaled the previous season’s record of 18-17 in their first season leading the program, have been focusing on both fielding and hitting this preseason.

The Tigers struggled from the plate early last year and errors were too many too often.

“Errors seemed to plague us quite a bit especially early on last season,” said Schleicher. “We’ve been a little bit slow out of the gates with the bats this year so we’re trying to get that going; there were some close games last year that could’ve very easily gone the other way had those hits been there.”

Wearden believes the key to winning this year is simply to enjoy the game.

“If we continue to work as a team and keep getting better we’ll be pretty good,” said Wearden. “We just try to have fun; if we’re not having fun we tend to not play very well.”