Season that could have been for Trotters

When you have been to the mountaintop and plant a flag, it's easy to start believing that maybe you belong there. And makes you eager to prove that you should be there again, maybe to reposition that flag at a higher point on the hill than the last time.

Winning consistently, year-in and year-out, gives you that kind of incentive, the kind with which coach Michele Bangen and her Plains-Hot Springs Trotters now enter each season.

Rising to the top of the Montana Class B-C softball world again last spring with a stirring run to the third place trophy at the State B-C tournament (after finishing third in the Western B-C), Bangen and her talented, experienced Plains-Hot Springs Trotters were thinking anything was possible again in this, the spring of 2020.

Then COVID-19 happened and the season that could have been suddenly turned into one that may never be. As of this writing, the status of Montana prep sports seasons remains unclear as the calendar rapidly approaches May.

Being really good last year, the Trotters could be excused for thinking they could have been pretty good again this season.

"We were really excited about the 2020 season," Bangen said. "We had a very successful season last year and were hoping to contend again when thing came to a halt. Like everyone else we are hoping to get going again if we can but time will tell if that happens."

The MHSA has said that the reopening of sports depends on the reopening of schools by early May. Since May Day is rapidly approaching, the fate of P-HS softball in 2020 should soon be revealed.

The 2019 State B-C trophy was only the second the Trotters have ever earned in school history (P-HS also won third place in the 2014 State B-C), and Bangen had a flock of returning pitching, hitting and fielding talent at her disposal.

Katie Mitchell and Danni Walker were back assistant coaching, and senior players Dakota Butcher, McKenzie Elliott, Sydney Jackson and Sage Jackson were back to lead the Trotters on the field.

Actually, Sage Jackson was now serving in a "graduate assistant coach role," according to Bangen, after a knee injury and subsequent surgery suffered during the recently completed basketball season. The fraternal twin to Sydney, Sage was a key player for the Trotters the past few seasons, a solid fielder and a dangerous hitter. And she still is a big part of the team, healthy or not.

"We feel bad for Sage missing playing her senior season and all," Bangen said. "But she had been great in practice with the younger kids. She is a team player, and is still a very big part of our team."

Sydney Jackson is the Trotters' only returning All-State B-C and Western B-C all-conference selection as flame-throwing pitcher Kassidy Kinzie and catcher Kenzie Angle, P-HS's other two all-conference players last year, have moved on.

Kinzie, who was a first team Western B-C pick and P-HS's other All-State B-C selection in 2019, is in fact, a player on the Miles Community College Pioneers softball team, although she too is now out on the COVID-19 wait-and-see list like everyone else.

Bangen feels she has the pitching to fill in behind Kinzie with sophomore Celsey VonHeeder, who pitched a lot of big games for P-HS last year, and Piper Bergstrom and Carli Wagoner, who have also been looking good in practice so far.

Now Bangen is left to wonder how it could have all played out.

"Eureka and MAC (Mission-Arlee-Charlo) were going to be good based on what they had coming back, and Loyola had the best pitcher in the state (McKenna Bessette) if she was healthy," she said. "The Western B-C was looking tough, but we felt like we would have been right in there with those teams.

"Maybe we will still find out, but no one knows for sure right now."