Blake Colston
sports@piedmontnewsonline.com
There likely won’t be much made of a players and coaches reunion when softball practice for the 2018 season begins next Thursday in Piedmont.
That’s because head coach Keith Coleman, who serves as head coach on the 16U Oklahoma Athletics travel ball team, has a roster loaded with starters from Piedmont’s varsity team. The group has played in Texas, Georgia, Arkansas and Illinois – just to name a few stops – this summer.
The A’s play against the top travel ball teams from across the United States on a weekly basis. It’s a huge advantage for Piedmont’s high school team – the summer travel slate basically serves as another full season together – and is completely within Oklahoma Secondary Activities Association rules.
Piedmont has a grabbed a pair of second place finishes and one tournament title this summer.
“We don’t have as much talent as many of the teams we play, but we can compete because we have great chemistry,” Coleman said.
Though there’s a strong desire to win as much as possible during the summer season, it’s also a time for players to showcase their talents to college recruiters while traveling the country.
When practice begins on the 26th, the focus will shift. PHS has a team returning that’s capable of competing for a state title, a nearly 180-degree shift from last preseason when the Lady ‘Cats were mostly overlooked in Class 5A after a .500 season in 2016.
Key hitters like Rikki Hadley, Ashlyn Brown and Kenedi Morelock all return along with starter pitcher Chloe Bohuslavicky.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how our kids respond to not being an underdog,” Coleman said. “Our expectations are really high this year and that’s not a secret. We have a chance to play for a state championship. No one will overlook us this year.”
Early in his career at Muskogee, when Coleman had a strong team like this one, he’d set their goal as a state title. His approached has changed with age.
“The thing I’ve learned is to set your goal as making it to state,” he said. “Because once, you’re there, it takes so much more than just being a good team. The best team doesn’t always win.”
As call Coleman says, more often than not, teams don’t win games at state, but they do lose them. Sometimes, a key error allows an underdog to advance. Piedmont doesn’t want to be that team.
Fundamentals will be a key part of fall camp, as they always are inside Piedmont’s program, and Coleman said he’s lucky to have a group of players that buy into the importance of the ‘small things.’
“I talk about them all the time,” he said. “We’re pretty fortunate. We don’t have any primadonnas. Our kids all understand their role and above all else they want to win.”
Having a dominant pitcher helps, too, and Piedmont has a good one.
Bohuslavicky used a solid freshman season as a springboard into a breakout sophomore year in which she totaled a 1.58 ERA with an 18-6 record and 91 strikeouts.
Bohuslavicky isn’t overpowering, Coleman said, but she has an excellent changeup which makes a 58-mile-per-hour fastball seem much faster. Coleman said she’s only the second pitcher he’s ever coached that can throw any pitch in any count. Mix that with the ability to locate with pinpoint accuracy, and she’s tough to hit.
“Where she’s gotten so much better is that she understands how to pitch,” he said. “She can be really effective even when she doesn’t have her best stuff.”
Piedmont opens the season in district play at Santa Fe South Aug. 6.
