Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A new era dawned on the Niles softball program Tuesday afternoon when the Vikings opened their season against Battle Creek Lakeview.

Niles entered the season as the defending Division 2 state champions.

The Vikings lost several key players from a year ago, including All-Staters Jenna Ignowski, Nellie Coquillard and Maggie Ernsberger.

Ignowski and Coquillard are now playing at Eastern Michigan University, while Ernsberger is playing at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

Also gone from that squad is Demi Schrader, who is playing at Ancilla College.

Those four players made up most of the infield and offense for the Vikings the past few seasons. Ignowski pitched nearly every inning for Niles the last three seasons, so there are a few holes to plug for coach Gary Collins.

There is plenty of remaining talent on the Niles squad, but it is going to take some time to jell as several of the returning players have been moved to new positions.

After watching the Vikings drop a doubleheader to Lakeview a few things were obvious.
Niles made too many mistakes on defense and did not create enough offense.

Don’t worry Viking fans those are things that the coaching staff can fix.

The other thing that will fix those issues is time and experience.

This team will get better each and every time it steps on the field. You can count on that.
And for some reason it doesn’t, Collins and his staff will work hard to make adjustments that will help the team get better.

So be patient, Niles fans. This is going to be a work in progress.