The Three Rivers College softball team had a successful season this spring in spite of a laundry list of setbacks.
Despite battling an injury to returning pitching ace Elly Eckrich and losing two players who transferred to four-year school Missouri S&T at semester, the Lady Raiders finished the spring 33-22, good for a .600 winning percentage.
“That’s not quite up to our standards of the last few years, but still a solid, very solid season,” Three Rivers coach Jeff Null said. “I felt like we had a couple of bad breaks along the way that I thought set us back, so it put us up against it a little bit.”
Adversity started before the season when Trista Grobe and Allie Kelly both left for Missouri S&T in Rolla. Grobe hit 17 home runs her freshman season for Three Rivers while batting .368 and was penciled in as the starting shortstop before transferring.
In addition, sophomore hurler — and Tennessee-Martin signee — Elly Eckrich was injured in TRC’s season and never was quite the same afterwards. After winning 14 games and pitching 122 innings as a freshman, Eckrich logged just 56 innings this spring and ended the season with a record of 5-6.
“This group was really up against it early on,” Null said. “We had talks with them (and told them) ‘Hey, some of y’all have got to step up. It’s more opportunity for some of you. Nobody’s going feel sorry for us. We’ve been beating teams the last six or seven years and they’re going to come after you because it’s their chance to beat up on us.’ But I was actually very pleased with how this group played.”
And step up they did, including wins over nationally-ranked (and NJCAA tournament qualifiers) Northwest Florida State and Chattanooga State on Feb. 23.
Another major positive from the spring was four Lady Raiders earned all-Region 16 and all-Midwest Community College Athletic Conference honors — pitcher Emma Crabb, catcher Lexi Davis, designated player Alyssa Bastien and infielder Gracie Wright.
Crabb had a standout season in the circle, going 20-10 with an earned-run average of 2.14 and striking out 308 batters in 209 innings. She also earned five saves in relief to have a hand in 25 of the team’s 33 wins. Meanwhile, Bastien batted .370 with 15 home runs and 50 RBIs, while Wright led the team with a .381 batting average and shared the team lead in RBIs with Bastien. Davis batted. 376 and hit six home runs, tied for third on the team.
“It was a good year for these kids,” Null said. “Maybe we could have been a little bit better in the win-loss column, but there’s a lot of factors that go into that. I was pretty pleased with our group.”
More than that, Three Rivers got the job done in the classroom. Null expects as many as a dozen Lady Raiders to be named Academic All-Americans for their efforts.
“The best thing we have is we have a really good group of kids coming back,” Null said. “They’re pretty tight and they make good grades. We had 11 (with) 4.0 (grade-point averages) and a 3.65 team GPA, which is the highest we’ve ever had for a semester.
“There’s a lot of positives to build off of going into next year. We’ve just got to come in hungry and ready to get after it.”
Among those positives for next season a returning group which includes Crabb in the pitcher’s circle.
Another is a talented incoming freshman class.
“We have 11 freshmen coming in that we’re very excited about,” Null said. “It is a very strong class, a mixture of pretty good hitters and pitchers.”
Mike Buhler - Daily American Republic