Staff file photo / Neel Madhavan South Range’s Jayli Wilt connects on a pitch during last year’s regional championship against Champion.

CANFIELD — After making its second state tournament appearance in three years and fourth consecutive regional appearance, South Range’s softball program is experiencing a youth movement of sorts.

The Raiders will field only two seniors and four juniors this season, a year after four senior starters led the team to a 27-5 record and the state semifinals in Akron. The relative lack of upperclassmen and continuity has put head coach Jeff DeRose in a different position than he is used to.

“This is the first time in a long time that we’re replacing five starters,” DeRose said. “So we’re gonna have pretty much a brand-new product on the field… I’ve been actually moving girls from outfield to infield, infield to outfield just to figure out what I actually even have. So it’s a learning curve on our part as coaches but also on the players as well.”

DeRose said, though, that he is rather excited about the prospect of starting upwards of half of a dozen sophomores at a time and what that could mean for the future of the South Range program.

“It’s nice because they’re gonna have some growing pains in the beginning, but I think as the season goes on, and we get into the next year and the year after that — we’re gonna be competitive this year, but we’re gonna be even better next year,” DeRose said.

Gretchen Bartels, a four-year starter and one of the Raiders’ two seniors, will move from third base to first this season. She batted .296 and drove in the third-most runs (22) on the team as a junior.

Bartels, whose younger sister Heidi is a sophomore on the team, said she is ready to embrace her role as a leader.

“I just take the responsibility [to] kind of lead them, tell them if they do something wrong, just fix whatever I see wrong and go from there,” Bartels said.

With the graduations of Juli Stachowicz and Samantha Susany, who accounted for a combined 174 innings pitched last season, DeRose will mostly rely on junior Jayli Wilt. In 19.1 innings across seven appearances, Wilt allowed only one earned run, tallying a 0.362 ERA in the process.

“My main goal this season is to try and help and get my team back to the same place we were last year,” Wilt said. “We had two absolutely amazing pitchers, Julie Stachowicz and Sam Susany, and I want to try my best to follow in their footsteps and get my team to regionals and maybe even state.”

DeRose expects juniors Riley DeCiancio and Giada Pauline to contribute from the field and at the plate; DeCiancio batted .444 in the limited opportunities she had, while Pauline drew the third-most walks on the team.

Despite only being sophomores, Keira Brogan and Anna Aey very well may be South Range’s best hitters in 2024. In a team-high 121 plate appearances, Brogan hit for .400 and posted the team’s second-best slugging percentage (.670) as a freshman. Aey similarly batted .373 and led the team in doubles (10) and home runs (3).

Even if Brogan, Aey and other members of its young core continue to progress, South Range will have a tough road to get back to the state tournament or even the regional. The Raiders’ calendar is filled with formidable opponents in an attempt to battle harden the team for the postseason.

“We don’t schedule teams to win games. We schedule teams to get better,” DeRose said.

Regardless of the ages of his players, DeRose remains confident his team has the requisite experience and belief in themselves to compete with the very best.

“They know what it’s like, they know the experience. There’s not like — when you go to the Firestone Stadium and you see you’re actually playing in the stadium and it’s a turf field and there’s fans everywhere. That element of being nervous is gone,” DeRose said. “The fact of the matter is, in their heads, they know they can win. It’s a matter if they can put it together.”

South Range opened its season Monday at home with a 10-0 win against Girard. The Raiders and Indians will play again at Girard today.

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