Under new head coach

The playoff loss ended CHS's most successful softball season to date. Since going 8-13 in 2000, Columbia High has won just eight of its last 38 games.

Lindstrom hopes to reverse that losing trend this season with a well-stocked veteran team that includes seven returning starters off last year's 4-15 ballclub.

Among those letter-winners are three-year starters Crystal Blankenship, Lisa Graves and Mallory Holtman, who plans to play collegiately next year for Central Washington University.

The trio enters its final high school season in pursuit of CHS's first winning season since the program got off to a 1-18 start in 1998.

Blankenship and Holtman earned All-Trico Division recognition for the second time last season, even though their team won just one of 16 league contests.

Both players will have to turn in career years if the Bruins hope to contend for a better-than-.500 record and top-four Trico finish in 2003.

Last year and the year before, Blankenship and Holtman formed CHS's primary catcher/pitcher combination. That'll be the case in 2003 as well.

Holtman was a workhorse the last two years, more often than not throwing both games of double-headers. Lindstrom will look to the durable righthander to again eat innings like Pac-Man gobbles video fruit.

Blankenship, too, saw service time on the mound, but in limited duty because CHS coaches wanted her behind the plate for her defense (blocking low pitches and throwing out would-be base-stealers).

The two also provided the Bruins' offense with a one-two punch in the third and fourth slots in the batting order.

They should get more help this year now that the other five returning starters have added another year of experience against prep fastpitch competition.

Lindstrom is looking for Graves to use her picky batting eye to get things going in the leadoff spot. She'll be followed to the plate by Ziegler, a right-handed hitter who exhibited gap power last season when she connected.

Consistent contributions from juniors Shelly Putnam and Jessica Miller, and sophomore Corrine Blankenship will solidify the middle of the order.

All three struggled at the plate last season, but each should be primed for a breakout in 2003.

Vying for at-bats in the eight and nine holes are five first-year CHS players: sophomores Candace Wilson, Chelsey Troup and Ramona Fuwell, and freshmen Dani Gilderhus and Jill Graves.

The Bruins' defensive alignment on the infield has Holtman on the mound, Blankenship behind the plate, Putnam at first base, Miller at second, Troup at third and Ziegler at shortstop.

In the outfield, Lisa Graves will be the anchor in center. Most of the time she'll play between Wilson in left and Corrine Blankenship in right.